for conquest. May it never advance save to bring liberty and self-government to all beneath its folds. May it never retreat save from a place where its presence would mean disloyalty to the American idea. May it float untarnished and unchanged, save by the blossoming of new stars in its celestial field of blue. May all seas learn to welcome it and all lands look to it as the emblem of the Great Republic; the mountain-peak of nations, lonely, if need be, till others have risen to her lofty standard. God keep her from lowering her flag from that proud solitude of splendor to follow the fortunes of the conquering sword. God save the birthright of the one country on earth, whose ideal is not to subjugate the world, but to enlighten it.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

THE BETTER PART

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 16, 1898.]

ON an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable words fell from His lips: "And Mary hath chosen the better part." This was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is also the highest test in the case of a race or a nation. Let us apply this test to the American negro.

In the life of our Republic, when he has had the opportunity to choose, has it been the better or worse part? When in the childhood of this nation the negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which perpetuated the race. When in 1776 the negro was asked to decide between British oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better part, and Crispus Attucks, a negro, was the first to shed his blood on State street, Boston, that the white American might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in slavery.

When in 1814, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the negro choosing the better part, and General Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defence of righteousness. When the long and memorable struggle came between Union and separation, when he knew that victory, on the one hand,

meant freedom, and defeat on the other his continued enslavement, with a full knowledge of the portentous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and the temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during the absence of the master in battle and thus insure his liberty, we find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the helpless, defenceless ones intrusted to his care.

When in 1863 the cause of the Union seemed to quiver in the balance and there was doubt and distrust, the negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor he displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Hudson and Fort Pillow testifies most eloquently again that the negro chose the better part. When a few months ago the safety and honor of the Republic were threatened by a foreign foe, when the wail and the anguish of the oppressed from a distant isle reached his ears, we find the negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting the laws and customs that discriminate against him in his own country, and again we find our black citizen choosing the better part.

If you would know how he deported himself in the field at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the negro faced death and laid down his life in defence of honor and humanity; and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the negro in the Spanish-American War, heard it from lips of Northern soldiers and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionist and ex-master, then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country?

In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the camp and field, suffering from fever and hunger, where is the official or citizen that has heard a word of complaint from the lips of a black soldier? The only request that has come from the negro soldier has been

that he might be permitted to replace the white soldier when heat and malaria began to decimate the ranks of the white regiment, and to occupy, at the same time, the post of greatest danger. This country has been most fortunate in her victories. She has twice measured arms with England and has won. She has met the spirit of rebellion within her own borders and was victorious. She has met the proud Spaniard, and he lies prostrate at her feet. All this is well; it is magnificent.

But there remains one other victory for Americans to win, a victory as far-reaching and important as any that has occupied our army and navy. We have succeeded in every conflict except in the effort to conquer ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. We can celebrate the era of peace in no more effectual way than by a firm resolve on the part of Northern men and Southern men, black men and white men, that the trenches which we together dug around Santiago shall be the eternal burial-place of all that which separates us in our business and civil relations. Let us be as generous in peace as we have been brave in battle. Until we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty statement when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at the heart of this Republic that shall one day prove as dangerous as an attack from an army from without or within.

In this presence and on this auspicious occasion I want to present the deep gratitude of nearly ten millions of my people to our wise, patient, and brave Chief Executive for the generous manner in which my race has been recognized during this conflict; a recognition that has done more to blot out sectional and racial lines than any event since the dawn of our freedom. I know how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on this subject. In your efforts to "rise on stepping-stones of your dead selves," we of the black race shall not leave

you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intelligence, and character, by each making himsef of individual worth in his own community. We shall aid you in this as we did a few days ago at El Caney and Santiago, when we helped you to hasten the peace which we here celebrate. You know us. You are not afraid of us. When the crucial test comes you are not ashamed of us. We have never betrayed or deceived you. You know that as it has been so it will be, whether in war or in peace, whether in slavery or in freedom, we have always been loyal to the Stars and Stripes.

THE NEGRO IN THE LATE WAR

[From an address delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 18, 1898.]

WITH the close of the Spanish-American War we are likely to find ourselves a very much mixed nation— so much so that I fear it may be a little difficult for the white American to find and identify himself. In fact, I feel rather anxious about the white man in this respect; but there is never any trouble about the negro in this regard, as he never gets lost in the mixture of races. We have a great advantage in this over the white man. You see, the instant it is proven that an individual has even one per cent. of African blood in his veins he becomes a negro-he falls to our pile in the count of races; the ninety-nine per cent. of AngloSaxon blood counts for nothing. We claim the man for our race, and we usually get him. It is a great satisfaction just now to belong to a race when white Americans are likely to find themselves intermingled with the Mongolian and the Malay from the Far East