The first great “friend” of the Negro was the Southern politician, Henry Clay, who, in the first half of the nineteenth century organized the American Colonization Society. This society befriended the “free men of color” by raising funds to ship them away to Liberia, which was accepted by many free Negroes as a high proof of the white man’s “friendship.” But Frederick Douglass, William Still, James McCune Smith, Martin R. Delaney, and other wide-awake Negroes were able to show (by transcripts of its proceedings) that its real purpose was to get rid of the free Negroes because, so long as they continued to live here, their freedom was an inducement to the slaves to run away from slavery, and their accomplishments demonstrated to all white people that the Negro (contrary to the claims of the slave-holders) was capable of a higher human destiny than that of being chattels—and this was helping to make American slavery odious in the eyes of the civilized world. Since that time the dismal farce of “friendship” has been played many times, by politicians, millionaires and their editorial adherents, who have been profuse in giving good advice to the Negro people. They have advised them to “go slow,” that “Rome was not built in a day,” and that “half a loaf is better than no bread,” that “respect could not be demanded,” and, in a thousand different ways have advised them that if they would only follow the counsels of “the good white people” who really had their interests at heart, instead of following their own counsels (as the Irish and the Jews do), all would yet be well. Many Negroes who have a wish-bone where their back-bone ought to be have been doing this. It was as a representative of this class that Mitchell’s man, Mr. Fred R. Moore, the editor of _The Age_, spoke, when in July he gave utterance to the owlish reflection that, The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed. It was as a fairly good representative of the class of “good white friends of the colored people” that Miss Mary White Ovington, the chairman of the New York Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, sent to _The Voice_ the following bossy and dictatorial note: My dear Mr. Harrison, I don’t see any reason for another organization, or another paper. If you printed straight socialism it might be different. Yours truly, MARY W. OVINGTON. These “good white people” must really forgive us for insisting that we are not children, and that, while we want all the friends we can get, we need no benevolent dictators. It is we, and not they, who must shape Negro policies. If they want to help in carrying them out we will appreciate their help.