“Be not discouraged. There is a future for you and a future for me. The resistance encountered now predicates hope. The negro degraded, indolent, lazy, indifferent to progress, is not objectionable to the average public mind. Only as we rise in the scale of proficiency do we encounter opposition. When we see a ship that lies rotting in the harbor, its seams yawning, its sides broken in, taking water and sinking, it meets with no opposition; but when its sails are spread to the breeze, its top-sails and its royals flying, then there is resistance. The resistance is in proportion to its speed. In Memphis three negro men were lynched, not because they were low and degraded, but because they knew their business and other men wanted their business. “I am delighted to see you all. Don’t be despondent. Don’t measure yourselves from the white man’s standpoint; but measure yourselves by the depths from which you have come. I measure from these depths, and I see what Providence has done. Daniel Webster said in his speech at the dedication of Bunker Hill monument: ‘Bunker Hill monument is completed. There it stands, a memorial of the past, a monitor of the present, a hope of the future. It looks, speaks, acts!’ So this assembly is a monitor of the present, a memorial of the past, a hope of the future. I see boys and girls around me. Boys, you will be men some day. Girls, you will be women some day. May you become good men and women, intelligent men and women, a credit to yourselves and your country. “I thank you for what I have experienced to-day and I leave you reluctantly, and shall always carry with me the pleasantest impressions of this occasion.” A GOOD FELLOW. He was a good fellow. He spent his money like a Prince. There was nothing too good for him to do for those with whom he kept company. He lived rapidly, and had no thought of to-morrow. He burned the candle of life at both ends. To-day he is dead,--and those vampires who sucked his life’s blood and helped him to spend his money have no time to give him one thought. Ah, how insincere and empty is the title of “good fellow” when it is applied to the man whose money is always on tap for those who are desirous of having a good time! And how corrupt and undesirable are the so-called friendships which spring from a lavish expenditure of money! Boys, the roof over your heads covers the best friends you could possibly have on earth. Those who slap you on the shoulder and say hilariously, “Good boy!” are seldom ever worth their salt. They like you for what they can get out of you--that’s all! Real happiness in this world comes, if at all, from living right and doing right. If you are a good fellow in the sense of giving everybody a “good time” with your hard-earned means, I warn you that, when your money gives out, all your friends will desert you, and when you die they will be the last ones to come near you, and may even laugh at what a fool you made of yourself!