Meanwhile, it is the duty (which is ever the highest policy) of the Negro to be patriotic in his devotion to his country, manly in his appeals for justice, and wise by discarding, by word or action, the fomenting of strife; ever on the alert to close the breach by increase of intelligence, moral worth and financial progress, and thus in great measure dissipate ignorance, vice and poverty, the abolition of which can be assisted, but not dispelled, save by a spirit of self-sacrifice on his part, subjecting his lower nature to the control of the higher. With such effort, united to a faith in God and the American conscience, he will yet soften ascerbities, dispel hindrance, and stem the tide. Philanthropy may assist a man to his feet, but cannot keep him there unaided by self-effort and an unconquerable will power to stand; while relinquishing no part of his claim upon his white brother as recompense for more than a century of unrequited labor, if with an equal chance for work, education and legal protection, he cannot not only stand, but advance, exertion in his behalf is "love's labor lost," he having no rights worthy of respect. But in no fair mind can there exist doubt as to his advancement. A people nine-tenths of whom 40 years ago did not legally own themselves or property, now having 140,000 farms, homes and industries worth $800,000,000; a people who, for a century previous to emancipation, were by law forbidden to learn to read or write, now have 3,000,000 children in 27,000 schools, and have reduced their illiteracy 45 per cent., have school and church property to the amount of $50,000,000, contributing themselves thereto $20,000,000; have written 300 books; have over 250 newspapers issued each week. His comparative success as merchant, mechanic or other line of industry which he is permitted to enter, speaks for itself, and finally, with per capita valuation of $75. Yet, in face of such statistical evidence, there are not wanting the Tillmans, Morgans, Burke Cockrans and other seers of a Montgomery convention, who, because the Negro, trammeled, as he is, does not keep step with the immense strides of the dominant class in their wondrous achievement, the product of a thousand years of struggle and culture, unblushingly allege that he is relapsing into barbarism, and with an ingratitude akin to crime, are oblivious to the fact that a large measure of the intellectual and material status of the nation and the cultured ability they so balefully use to retard him, are the product of a century of his unrequited labor.