The “MacVeagh Commission,” which visited Louisiana in 1876, reported that the Negro party had a great majority in the State, had had possession of every branch of the State Government, and had been sustained by the United States Government, and yet the whites had defeated and ousted them. Were the same conditions to exist to-day the same results would occur. This country is as “fatally reserved for” the Anglo-Saxon race as it was when the Virginia Adventurers declared it to be so in their first report to Elizabeth. And, lastly, I am satisfied that the final settlement must be by the way of elevating both races. There is much truth in the saying that unless the whites lift the Negroes up, the Negroes will drag them down, though it is not true in the full sense in which it was intended. It is not true to the extent that the white must lift the Negro up to his own level; it is true to the extent that he must not leave him debased—at least, must not leave him here debased. If he does, then the Negro will inevitably hold him, if not drag him down. No country in the present state of the world’s progress can long maintain itself in the front rank, and no people can long maintain themselves at the top of the list of peoples if they have to carry perpetually the burden of a vast and densely ignorant population, and where that population belongs to another race, the argument must be all the stronger. Certainly, no section can, under such a burden, keep pace with a section which has no such burden. Whatever the case may have been in the past, the time has gone by, possibly forever, when the ignorance of the working-class was an asset. Nations and peoples and, much more, sections of peoples, are now strong and prosperous almost in direct ratio to their knowledge and enlightenment. It can readily be demonstrated by unquestioned proof that the wealth and strength of modern nations are in almost exact proportion to the education of the population. It is not, however, necessary for the present argument to go outside of America. Viewing the matter economically, the Negro race, like every other race, must be of far more value to the country in which it is placed, if the Negro is properly educated, elevated, and trained, than if he is allowed to remain in ignorance and degradation. He is a greater peril to the community in which he lives if he remains in ignorance and degradation than if he is enlightened. If the South expects ever to compete with the North, she must educate and train her population, and, in my judgment, not merely her white population, but her entire population.