But will the so-called negro be free as long as he remains at the foot of the industrial ladder? Can he be free as long as poverty stares him in the face? Can he take his place among the other races of the world, unless he becomes a producer, and controls the economic forces about him? Why is the so-called negro not free today? Why is he pleading for an opportunity and for justice to be given him on every hand? There is but one answer, he is a victim of economic slavery--a slave to the economic force of this country. In the field of mercantile business he is only a child, in the world of commerce he is yet a stranger, in co-operative industries he is an alien, in all creative industries he is at the foot of the ladder. If the negro would become free and independent, let him enter into the creative industries in larger numbers. We must have a greater per cent of negroes in business and fewer negroes in the so-called parasitical professions, such as lawyers and doctors. We must have captains of industries, we must have more negroes as manufacturers and bankers, we must have more negroes, instead of looking to the white race to support his boys and girls, the negro will then be able to protect them himself. In proportion then, as the negro learns the spirit of co-operation, in that same proportion will he be able to rid himself of the existing evils that seem to befall him. In this martialistic age, any race, in order to protect itself, must conquer those economical principles so necessary to its very existence. Then let the negro enter largely into the creative fields of industry, let him become a producer and not a consumer. When he has control of all the economic forces about him, prejudice, jimcrowism and disfranchisement will cease, no longer will he have to plead to the white man for justice. We will, with our finance, backed by a spirit of co-operation, force every barrier down. When the negro succeeds as a financier, he and his posterity will be as free as the mighty winged eagle that soars to the summits sublime, as free as the fairest Anglo-Saxon that trod American soil. Then, and not until then, will the negro be free. I am drawing your attention to a source of facts that are among all nations, the opportunities that would free a race, are ninety-eight per cent cut off from the black man, he is only a consumer and not a producer. He is not allowed to produce like other nations, not even in his own country, Africa, the country that the God of Heaven and Earth has given him. He is ready and capable to build up his country, and to pick and back his own leaders, those whom he can trust. Ninety-eight per cent of the picked leaders have proven themselves to be self-seekers and crooks. We don’t want them, but they must go for the good of all nations that put such traitors over a people of God.