But all that is ancient history. What happened even yesterday is old, and we are too busy today working to take advantage of the things offered us today, and that will happen tomorrow, to dream about the past. We are all working to make things turn out to our advantage, and the less we dwell about the past the closer we get to the golden fruit. We are living in a practical age, and the man who does things prospers, while the dreamer starves or gropes about at the bottom of the ladder. All men need things; want something done for them. It is good business policy to supply the wants and to do the things everybody wants done. We mentioned the “Underground Railroad” as something that benefited the race; but we have its successor in the way of transportation that is reaping profit from that benefit. That successor is the “Overground Railroad.” It is a system of transportation such as the world has never seen or used. You ask: “What is an ‘Overground Railroad?’” Everybody can answer, or thinks he can, so he says: “Why, it is a railroad that runs over the land and transports passengers and freight.” But the answer does not hit the mark, for this particular Overground exercises a mightier power; possesses a wider influence than the mere haulage of passengers and freight. It carries opportunity, activity, benefit, incentive, intelligence, knowledge, and progress to every corner of this great land and into every town, village, city, hamlet, even the cross-roads are reached. It reaches every one of ten millions of a great race that less than two decades ago were forbidden opportunity, and compelled to travel over the “Underground Railroad.” Now, everything belonging to the great mass of mankind, or to which they are entitled or may aspire, is parceled out with lavish hand to all who wish to take. The effort is yours, the prize awarded you. In round numbers there are about two hundred thousand miles of railroads in the United States, spreading out in every direction from ocean to ocean, and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. Many of them reach over into Mexico and Canada. On the trains operated by these railroads, there are thousands of Pullman cars, drawing-room and chair-cars. All of these cars are in the charge of Colored Americans, the sum total of their number running up into tens of thousands. These men are the posterity, the descendants of the passengers of the old “Underground Railroad.”