As for this great Southland, the largest portion of her wealth is but the product of the black man's labor. Cotton is the chief staple of America, and when to this we add sugar and iron we have the heft of Southern wealth--and the brawny hand of the Negro produces at least three-fourths of these commodities. It was his hand chiefly that felled the mighty forest of this Southland; it was his hand that dug out and laid these railroads, taking away the old stagecoach and making pleasant and rapid transit possible; it was his shoulder that carried the mortar hod to erect these palatial cities; it was the sweat from the Negro's brow that has made Georgia the Empire State of the South; it was Negro labor that made it possible for the Exposition to be held in Atlanta. Go where you will, from Washington to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio River, and almost every acre of land and object of interest you behold bears the impress of Negro labor, industry, and skill. Looking from your car window on either side most of the beautiful farms that you see were cleared and are tilled by the Negro; and most of the beautiful residences you have passed were built, painted, and kept in order by Negroes. All of those beautiful, flowered lawns show Negro industry. The glittering iron rails which led you on lightning express to this city were laid by Negro hands after he had tunneled the mountains, leveled the hills, and filled the hollows. And if those iron rails were made South and the Negro did not forge them, it was because the boss had an acute attack of colorphobia and gave the job to some nondecitizenized, ready-to-work emigrant. Some people used to say that the Negro was lazy, and that if freed he would perish. I have traveled all over this country and through many others, and I have seen thousands of tramps, but I have as yet met but one first-class Negro tramp, and he was in London; therefore I concluded that he had strayed from his race, and had learned the trade from the white people. I have also learned that at the great national tramp convention recently held in New York not a single Negro was present. True it is that we find too many idle Negroes in the towns and cities "holding up the corners." Well, Dr. Price once said that the Negro had to work so hard in the hot sun during slavery that a great many of them promised themselves that if ever they got free they would take a good rest. The Doctor concluded that this idle class were making good their promise. But the true cause of this apparent idleness lies far back of this. It arises partially out of the very distressing condition of the cotton planters of the South. The Negroes have been so industrious for the last decade that they have overflooded the cotton markets of the world, and consequently so reduced the price of this staple that the landlords are not disposed to feed hirelings through the winter, and the colored people, who have