Has the Negro building contractor who knows his business a fair chance to succeed in the South? B. L. Windham, of the contracting firm of Windham Brothers, Birmingham, Ala., declares that efficiency and not color determines the kind of work that Negroes receive. His firm has built a $100,000 apartment house for white people in Birmingham, Ala. It employs, on an average, 100 people--all Negroes--throughout the year to handle some $300,000 worth of contracts. The business of this firm of Negro contractors has grown from $50,000 in 1903 to $265,000 for seven months in 1913 and is carried on from the Mason and Dixon line to the Gulf of Mexico. The annual meetings of the Negro Business League give some striking stories of Negro success and progress to men and women who need courage and inspiration for their work. Other stories could be cited to show that the Negro who applies himself to business and refrains from whining wins the patronage and good will not only of his own people but also of the white people. Courage, initiative, and persistence are indeed required for the task of establishing any business. The resolutions, adopted at the final session of the league, summarized the progress of the Negro during fifty years of freedom. Ten million American Negroes now pay taxes on over $700,000,000 worth of property and own 20,000,000 acres of land (that is, about 31,000 square miles). They own 63 banks, capitalized at $2,600,000 and doing an annual business of $20,000,000. Today there are Negro business leagues in twelve states. Facts of Negro progress need to be better understood by white and black people. One of the best sources of information is the Negro Year Book, edited by Monroe N. Work of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala. CIVICS THE CHILD WELFARE EXHIBIT THROUGH THE CHILDREN’S EYES MAY AYRES This spring, ten-year-old Ralph in one of the Rochester public schools wrote a letter to his teacher: “Do you know what the Child’s Welfare Exhibit is for? Well, if you do not know what it is for, I will tell you. It is for the child to know better and try and keep the house clean, for a dirty house is a terrible house to live in. And most every disease comes from a dirty house--especially tuberculosis. Because we found out over at the armory that when you get tuberculosis it keeps eating at your lungs, and only fresh air will kill tuberculosis.”