any responsible officer of the law. Violations of the letter and spirit of the statutes are committed over the protest of the authorities, and those who desire the aggressive execution of all the laws in the future must exercise more care in the selection of men intrusted with the power of administration. More attention must be paid to the character and personal fitness of candidates standing for office. The Negro can and will help to do this. The regeneration of existing conditions among the whites must come from an enlightened public spirit and a broader culture, such as are being bred through the public schools and through the introduction of improved methods in business and social life. First-class white men must take hold of the reins of government throughout the Southland. The Negro is an imitative creature, and he takes on the color of his environment. If it be charged that he is frequently immoral, dishonest and shiftless, the dissolute whites with whom he has been closely identified have furnished a model that he has copied only too faithfully. Let the Christian element become a more prominent factor in state affairs, and the Negro will at once grow in character and address by virtue of the inspiring example thus set for him. This phase of the "Negro problem" carried to its logical conclusion becomes the "white man's problem." Will the Southern American rise in his majesty, dismiss his prejudice and prove equal to the lofty duty allotted to him? Will he give the Negro a man's chance in the battle of life, and depend upon his own natural gifts of mind and heart for his supremacy? The political phase of the race problem I shall touch but briefly. There is no call for the Negro "to get _out of politics_;" as the term is popularly used. The fact is the Negro should begin "to _get into politics_" in the truest sense of the word--that is, to begin at the a b c of political power and come up by the usual processes of individual development. The suffrage is a privilege conferred by the state. States make certain restrictions for their own protection as sovereign commonwealths. Although it is unfortunately a fact that the restrictions are enforced more rigidly against black illiterates and black non-property-holders than against the whites, of similar deficiencies, the conditions are there and can only be fought down by intelligently meeting the requirements, whatever they may be. No educated Negro is refused the right of suffrage by any constitutional enactment. No property-owner is made to feel himself outlawed by virtue of suffrage restrictions.