Hitherto I have spoken chiefly of the obligations existing on the part of the white man. Now let you remember on the other hand that no help can permanently avail you save as you yourselves develop capacity for self-help. You young colored men and women educated at Tuskegee must by precept and example lead your fellows toward sober, industrious, law-abiding lives. You are in honor bound to join hands in favor of law and order and to war against all crime, and especially against all crime by men of your own race; for the heaviest wrong done by the criminal is the wrong to his own race. You must teach the people of your race that they must scrupulously observe any contract into which they in good faith enter, no matter whether it is hard to keep or not. If you save money, secure homes, become taxpayers, and lead clean, decent, modest lives, you will win the respect of your neighbors of both races. Let each man strive to excel his fellows only by rendering substantial service to the community in which he lives. The colored people have many difficulties to pass through, but these difficulties will be surmounted if only the policy of reason and common-sense is pursued. You have made real and great progress. According to the census the colored people of this country own and pay taxes upon something like three hundred million dollars’ worth of property, and have blotted out over fifty per cent of their illiteracy. What you have done in the past is an indication of what you will be able to accomplish in the future under wise leadership. Moral and industrial education is what is most needed, in order that this progress may continue. The race can not expect to get everything at once. It must learn to wait and bide its time; to prove itself worthy by showing its possession of perseverance, of thrift, of self-control. The destiny of the race is chiefly in its own hands, and must be worked out patiently and persistently along these lines. Remember also that the white man who can be of most use to the colored man is that colored man’s neighbor. It is the Southern people themselves who must and can solve the difficulties that exist in the South; of course what help the people of the rest of the Union can give them must and will be gladly and cheerfully given. The hope of advancement for the colored man in the South lies in his steady, common-sense effort to improve his moral and material condition, and to work in harmony with the white man in upbuilding the Commonwealth. The future of the South now depends upon the people of both races living up to the spirit and letter of the laws of their several States and working out the destinies of both races, not as races, but as law-abiding American citizens. AT THE CAPITOL BUILDING, MONTGOMERY, ALA., OCTOBER 24, 1905 _Governor; Colonel Wiley; My Fellow-Citizens_: