The real foundation of peonage, after all, as it relates to the Negro is the refusal to regard him as a man having rights as other men have them. So far has wrong, and injustice, and oppression gone that not only is the Negro outside of the consideration of the law of the land, but practically outside of the humane and kindly regard of a majority of the white race in the United States. Not only are laws perverted and given a special twist and interpretation in cases where the Negro is a party to litigation, but even words in ordinary use lose their accepted meaning when applied to him. The word "duty," for instance, has not a scintilla of moral significance in it when used about or spoken to a Negro. It has purely an industrial and economic meaning, which may be expressed in the injunction, "Servants, obey your masters." The word "kindness," which implies one of the noblest traits of human nature, when applied to a Negro means simply that his treatment shall not be so harsh as to cause people who are yet included in the category of decent, to wince and protest. The denial of right to the Negro has been progressive in the past forty years. First, he was denied the right to vote, and we were told if he would only hold that right in abeyance that he might enjoy other rights in fuller measure. Many, under a misconception of the facts, accepted this view, but since the denial of the right to vote other rights have been impaired. The right to education in its broadest and most comprehensive sense is now practically denied him everywhere, and if not denied the wisdom of his receiving it is seriously questioned. The right to hold property and live in it wherever he may purchase it is denied and restricted. The right to work at whatever occupation he may be fitted is denied, and his opportunities for earning a living are confined to narrower and narrower limits each year. Even the fundamental right of a slave to petition when the yoke is galling is denied him, and when he would assemble to formulate just complaints in a way protected by the law of the land, he is accused of whining and of stirring up bad feeling between the races, and so the list might be extended indefinitely. The contest for the future must be a constant effort to educate public opinion to the point where it will concede to the Negro inalienable rights: The right to vote, the right to an education in all that the term implies, the right to employment in all occupations, the right to make of himself and of his people and of his neighbors all that they may become under the most favored conditions. In short, to use the phrase of Kipling, the ideal sought is, "Leave to live, by no man's leave, underneath the law."