The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.4, page 167, Apr. 1896, U. of Illinois Press

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APRIL · ~ 896 heard a Southern clergyman praying in a most earnest manner that the gospel might be sent to. the millions in. Africa, and just right across the street there were n.egro families just as much in need of Christ's life as any in Africa, and they had never been touched by the minister. * * * * There are numbers of white men in the North and West who pray earnestly that the race problems in the South may soon be solved, who never think of solving the race problem in their own offices, stores or factories. Let the colored boy who sweeps the office or runs errands In a bank or factory feel that one day he may become a clerk or a cashier in the bank or a partner in the factory, and you make a new boy of him. The ambition and the talents of thousands of colored boys and girls are being smothered and cramped, simply because they fee] that there is a limit to their aspirations. * * * * Said a colored porter to me on a Pullman car a. few days ago, when I refused his invitation to take a drink of whisky: ''all a colored man can do' is to drink whisky and play cards.'' If that porter could have felt that one day he could become the conductor or a superintendent of a division, how different would have been ho ambitions. * * * * There are thousands of white men North and South., who pray earnestly for the salvation and comfort of the Negroes soul in the future world, who never think of turning over their hand to' give the negro a chance to' make his body comfortable in matters of public travel and accommodation in this world. * * * * Not long ago I heard a white man protesting that he did not want to ride in the same railroad coach with a dirty negro, yet this same white man seemed to forget that between Washington City and New Orleans there is no public place outside a Pullman car, where a colored man is allowed to wash arid become clean while traveling. Let us apply more and more the Golden Rule, ''as ye would have men do unto you do' ye even so unto' them.'' I fear the negro' is ahead of the white man in this. Booker T. Washington Our Day, ~6 (Apr. 1896), gong. 167