“Three elders cannot all fail to pronounce the word _ekulu_ (antelope): one may say _ekúlu_; another _ekulú_; but the third will say, _ékulu_ (which is correct).” In other words, several heads are better than one; or, in a multitude of counsellors there is safety. It was this simple social precept which a highly individualistic man like Roosevelt used frequently to the advantage of himself and the nation. When a perplexing problem would confront President Roosevelt, he was wont to invite to the White House persons whose beliefs were contrary to his own in order to secure their opinions. He acted independently, but after taking counsel with several “elders.” In _Thinking Black_, Daniel Crawford has presented phases of the colored man’s philosophy.[II-2] While much is individual, more is social philosophy. Custom imitation prevails. The social philosophy of the African Negro is summarized in the rule: Follow your leader. Social precedent, not principle, is the guide to conduct. If you are a follower, follow patiently; if you are a leader, lead drastically. “If thou art an anvil, be patient ... but if thou art a hammer, strike hard.” The African understands the social psychology of language. He watches the eyes more carefully than the voice. To him the human eye speaks all languages under the sun. Mr. Crawford says that the wary eye of the African “can easily fish news out of the two deep liquid pools of your eye-balls.” If your eye says one thing and your tongue another, then the African “will plump for the verdict of the eye.” The aphorism, There is no pocket in a shroud, warns the individual against the possibility of taking his material goods into the next world. To share with other persons is rated a higher act than to store from others. He is richest who shares most. Among the Africans with whom Mr. Crawford worked, the word for criminal was not applied to the person who had stolen property or who had taken life, but to the one who eats alone. “The high crime and misdemeanor of the town is to dine alone;” the criminal above other criminals is “Mr. Eat-Alone.” He who refuses to share his food with those who are less fortunate than himself is an arch-devil. Such a vice is common among beasts; it is beneath the dignity of man--according to the African. When several primitives were taken to London and shown the wealthy and the poor sections of that city, they were dumbfounded. They were utterly unable to understand how any persons with the slightest spark of human nature in them could endure to live to themselves in wealth when in the same city there were the wretched and prostrated multitudes of Whitechapel and the other cheerless slums.