The moral is plain. Get education. Be thrifty and economical. Get lands and money. Get character and personal culture. These qualities, united, pass as good coin in any state North or South. They go far to minimize the disadvantages of color everywhere. Without them no race is strong anywhere. They are potent in allaying the race feeling aggravated by too many of us, through voting under the leadership of scheming politicians who are opposed to the best interests of the masters of the Southern soil, and who have no use for black men except on election day. In the matter of suffrage, I would suggest that the black voter place himself in touch with his white neighbors. The interests of each are identical. It is of far greater importance to the Negro to have the friendship, respect and confidence of his next-door neighbor than who shall be President of the United States. It is of more moment to him who shall be sheriff or member of the state legislature and city council than who shall go to Congress. This suggests that the Negro use clear judgment in casting his ballot, and that he use that instrument to identify himself with the law-abiding and progressive forces about him. The Negro's natural home will ever be in the South. The careful exercise of suffrage in promoting the interests of that section, eliminating partisan bitterness and vengeful spirit, will be one of the most powerful agencies in maintaining and strengthening friendly relations between the races there. Further, let the Negro make for himself a place in the business world. Let him develop hotels, groceries, stores and shops of all kinds, thus affording employment to our competent young men and women. Let him perfect himself in the useful arts; till the soil, and become an indispensable factor in the uplift of the community which he calls home. The farmer, the artisan, and industrious wage-earner form the backbone of racial progress, for they support the church, are patrons of the schools, and are steady conservers of public morals. From this firm center, a lever is furnished which holds up the house of the minister, the editor, the teacher, physician, the artist, the lawyer, and all of the so-called "polite" professions. Let the Negro build up his own social circle, and strive to perfect it through an exemplary home life. While a part of the general social system the Negro people can be to the Whites, as Booker T. Washington so well puts it, "separate as the fingers" in social contact, but "one as the hand" in all that tends to sustain and improve the State and Nation.