The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.5, page 145, July 1899, U. of Illinois Press

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JULY 1 899 been able to learn was ever reported. He thought it wouIct be admitted, therefore, that on that occasion they amply manifested their loyalty and fidelity to their masters. The black people had done much for themselves. About one-tenth of the men had acquired some portion of land, and they had made a certain advance. Mr. Washington was a pupil of the late General Armstrong, who devoted many years of his life to the establishment and maintenance of the leading school at Hampton, Virginia. Mr. Washington had qualified himself to follow in Armstrong's path. He also had founded a school, or training college, at Tuskegee, Alabama, where the pupils were not only given a primary education, but were afforded the means of earning a livelihood. There were now Woo pupils in the school. About half the number of those who passed through it went out as teachers to spread the light and the knowIedge they had acquired there among their own race, and the other half were put into a position to support themselves by manual trades. The Government of the United States thought well of the work. It gave the school a grant of ~s,ooo acres of land in Alabama only last year. The State of Alabama, in which it was placed, gave it an annual donation. In addition it derived something from the funds left by the great philanthropist, George Peabody, and from another fund founded by an American philanthropist. The remainder of the sum needed for carrying on the work some £~5,°°° a year—was derived from voluntary contributions, which were stimulated by the appeals made by Mr. Washington, whom he regarded as the leader of his race in America. (Cheers.) Mr. Washington in a brief and interesting speech described the condition and prospects of the coloured race in America. Immediately after receiving their freedom, he said, the negroes, for the most part, got into debt, and they had not been able to free themselves to the present day. In many places it was found that as many as three-fourths of the coloured people were in debt, living on mortgaged land, and in many cases uncler agreements to pay interest on their indebtedness ranging between ~ 5 and ago per cent. The work of improving their condition was far from hopeless, and he was far from being discouraged. If his people got no other good out of slavery they got the habit of work. But they did not know how to utilize the results of their labour; the greatest injury which slavery wrought upon them was to deprive them of executive i45