In considering the various occupations, trades, etc., in which our Colored Americans are engaged, the locality must be taken into account. The colored man, like the Jew, the Irishman, and the Italian, meets with more prejudice in one than in another locality, and he must govern his occupation in a great measure by that prejudice, until he is strong enough to overcome it, and intelligent enough to find a way to overcome it. There are many who hold that the Colored American in the South finds less opposition and prejudice against him in the trades and occupations than in the North. There is less also in the East than in the West, except that in the Middle West, or the northern portion of Mississippi Valley, where there is less prejudice against the employment of Colored Americans outside the large cities where the trades unions prevail and control. Owing to this diminution of prejudice in the Middle West, the number of Colored Americans in that part of the country is increasing, likewise improving. In the South, it is said, the differences between the two races is not so much prejudice against employment, as a political idea that the Colored Americans are on the way to obliterate the color line. Notwithstanding this opposition, the Colored American readily finds room for his labor where he would be impeded in the North and West from the opposition of the great labor unions, the great aim of which is material progress and not intellectual. It is for the Colored American, therefore, to govern his choice of a business, trade, or profession by the locality in which he lives or purposes remaining during his natural life. In that selection, he is afforded advantages to rise to any limit of perfection and thus obtain profit from his talents and capacity. THE SKILLED WORKMAN The man who limits himself to become a skilled workman, or a successful tradesman anywhere, must drop his personal grievances, and not attempt to father the evils and troubles of the race upon himself. Who cares about the downtrodden condition of Ireland? The Irishman who is constantly calling attention to the heel of the oppressor upon his neck, makes a poor workman and remains stationary in the lower level. The Jew who talks about the sufferings of his race receives but little sympathy because he is referring to ancient history. So it is with the others and so it is with everybody who attempts to take upon his own shoulders the ills and burdens of the whole. In the first place, it is not his business, and in the second place, people around him are fighting their way up, while he is always looking down to see how far he must fall, and he gets dizzy and does fall. It is an old but true saying applicable to Colored Americans as it is applied to everybody else: “Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone.”