Very early in his career Washington worked out for himself a perfectly definite line of conduct in the matter of social mingling with white people. In the South he scrupulously observed the local customs and avoided offending the prejudices of the Southerners in so far as was possible without unduly handicapping his work. For instance, in his constant travelling throughout the South he not only violated their customs, but oftentimes their laws, in using sleeping cars, but this he was obliged to do because he could spare neither the time to travel by day nor the strength and energy to sit up all night. This particular Southern prejudice and the laws predicated upon it he was hence forced to violate, but he did so as a physical necessity to the accomplishment of his work and not in any sense as a defiance of custom or law. While in the South he observed Southern customs and bowed to Southern prejudices, but he declined to be bound by such customs, laws, and prejudices when in other parts of this country or the world. Except in the South he allowed himself whatever degree of social intercourse with the whites seemed best calculated to accomplish his immediate object and his ultimate aims. He never accepted purely social invitations from white persons. He always claimed that he could best satisfy his social desires among his own people. He believed that the question of so-called "social equality" between the races was too academic and meaningless to be worthy of serious discussion. Probably he never made a more well-considered or illuminating statement of his personal attitude toward social intercourse with the dominant race than in a letter to the late Edgar Gardiner Murphy, a Southerner "of light and leading," author of "The Present South," "The Basis of Ascendancy," and other notable books on the relations between the races. Mr. Murphy, as a Southerner, became alarmed at the attacks upon Booker Washington by certain Southern newspapers and public men because of his appearance at so-called social functions in the North. Mr. Murphy, rightly regarding the retention of the favorable opinion of representative Southern whites as essential to the success of Washington's work, very naturally feared any course of action which seemed to threaten the continuance of that favorable opinion. In response to a letter in which Mr. Murphy expressed these fears and asked for an opportunity to discuss the situation with him Mr. Washington replied as follows: [_Personal_]