"King David, pondering over God's mercies and goodness to him, thinking of how he had been taken from minding sheep and placed upon the throne of Israel; and how God had guided and protected him and made his name great in the earth, exclaimed reverently, one day, 'What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits unto me?' and he answered his question, in part, by saying: 'I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all the people.' "If all our graduates could speak to-night, they would have me pay their vows of gratitude for the opportunity to make blessed and beautiful their lives, given by our great teacher; and they would have me give public assurance of their fealty to the work for which Mr. Washington gave his life. "And so, Mr. Chairman, in the name of the Alumni Association and in the spirit of him whose body lies buried just beyond those walls, I pledge you and the Trustees the loyalty of the Tuskegee graduates to whatever work they are called in connection with the realization of Dr. Washington's great purpose. I pledge you their support in the work which you have come to Tuskegee to perform; because we are learning self-government and wish to help prove to the world that we can pass the succession to the Principalship here without revolution. By this time to-morrow night another prophet will have been raised up to serve in the room of the great founder of this school. I want you, Sir, and the Board of Trustees to know that when the proclamation is made that 'The King is Dead!' our Alumni Association will be ready to reply: 'Long Live the King!' and we will faithfully, honestly, and loyally support the person you elect to succeed our great father, whoever that person may be. "In the furtherance of Dr. Washington's work, the graduates stand ready to say: "'I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, O'er the mountain, or plain, or sea; I'll say what you want me to say, dear Lord; I'll be what you want me to be.'" In the _Survey_ article, after briefly describing the ups and downs of Mr. Washington's long fight against a breaking constitution, Mr. Richardson says: "With such perpetual rallying power who could cope? A latent feeling crept among many that he was immune to pain as he had been to insult and abuse. You know he could steer on over an insult and never see it. Some of us shook our heads and said, 'Why he is good for ten years yet.' Seeing that he thus defied nerves and baffled pain, we hoped. It was in the hour of hope that the last stroke came, and we felt that pulling at the throat which we should have felt had he gone by sudden accident.