However much Mr. Washington may have seemed to eliminate non-essentials in the pressure and haste of his wholesale educational task he never neglected essentials, but among essentials he included matters which might on the surface appear to be small and trifling. For instance, he insisted upon good table manners, and no boy or girl could spend any considerable time at Tuskegee without acquiring such manners. Instead of a trivial detail he regarded good table manners as an essential to self-respect and hence to the development of character. In short, he was engaged not so much in conducting a school as educating a race. CHAPTER FOUR THE RIGHTS OF THE NEGRO Booker Washington was occasionally accused both by agitators in his own race and by a certain type of Northern white men who pose as the special champions of the "downtrodden" black man as encouraging a policy of submission to injustice on the part of his people. He was, for example, charged with tame acquiescence in the practical disfranchisement of the Negro in a number of the Southern States. As a matter of fact, when these disfranchising measures were under consideration and before they were enacted, he in each case earnestly pleaded with the legislators that whatever restrictions in the use of the ballot they put upon the statute books should be applied with absolute impartiality to both races. This he urged in fairness to the white man as well as the black man. In an article entitled, "Is the Negro Having a Fair Chance?" published in the _Century Magazine_ five years ago, Booker Washington said in illustrating the evil consequences of discrimination in the application of ballot regulations: "In a certain county of Virginia, where the county board had charge of registering those who were to be voters, a colored man, a graduate of Harvard University, who had long been a resident of the county, a quiet, unassuming man, went before the board to register. He was refused on the ground that he was not intelligent enough to vote. Before this colored man left the room a white man came in who was so intoxicated that he could scarcely tell where he lived. This white man was registered, and by a board of intelligent white men who had taken an oath to deal justly in administering the law.