The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.13, page 498, Jan. 1899, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers find any way out of our present condition save this, and ~ am ready to lay down all my plans and will follow where you lead. But the task is not hopeless: it Is In no degree discouraging. Already in the seeming darkness the sunlight begins to appear. Only a few weeks ago in Washington, in a national convention of black people, whose spirit was controlled by such members of the race as Mr. T. Thomas Fortune, Mrs. Ida Wells Barnett, and Mr. Judson W. Lyons, we find a resolution passed to the effect that, whenever it would serve the highest welfare of the negro race in a given situation in the future the negro vote shall be divided among all political parties. This is the most advanced position taken by any responsible negro representative body since our freedom. There is further encouragement in the fact that almost without exception, North and South, between both races, there is an agreement that what the negro most needs Is education. As to the form of education in the South, we of both races have grown to the point where practically all are united in the opinion that just now industrial education, coupled with thorough religious and academic training, without circumscribing the ambition and inclination of those who have the means to secure what is regarded as the higher education, is now most needed. This industrial training wild teach the negro thrift, economy, the dignity of labor, and will soonest enable him to become an intelligent producer In the highest sphere of life, a property holder, a larger tax-payer, a greater commercial factor, will enable him to knit himself into the business life of the South. It seems to me that the highest duty which the generous and patriotic people of this country owe to themselves and their country is to give willingly the means for the support of such institutions as Tuskegee, which are, without doubt, solving this serious and perplexing problem. If we had the means at Tuskegee, we could make our work ted in a hundred-fold larger degree in the settlement of this great question. You of the North have in a large measure the money for education which is to settle this vital problem. Christian Register, 78 ~ Feb. £, ~ 899 ), ~ 2 I-22. 498