Progress and Achievements of the Colored People: Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success
John Stuart Mill · en
They become laden with unlimited cosmopolitan and universal knowledge
and information, charged with it as a bee is charged with honey in its
flights from bush to bush and from flower to flower.
This is not an exaggeration, on the contrary, it is of such common
knowledge that we think nothing about it. It is every-day fact that any
one can see for himself by going to any railroad depot in the country.
We said these men are the great deposit reservoirs of everything, but
unlike the most of our deposit reservoirs, they are also the sources of
distribution through innumerable channels. Their business is like the
training at a State Normal School with actual experience added in
unlimited quantities. They go out from these training schools, or rather
from this educational system belonging to every Overground Railroad and
scatter knowledge, information, and opportunity. A word, even a hint, of
what “a man told me on the run from New Orleans to Chicago,” and one or
perhaps many, find themselves boosted into opportunities they never
would have found without the operators on the Overground Railroad.
These Pullman employees are evangelists, news gatherers, and experienced
men acquainted with the ways and doings of the world. They have homes,
abiding places, wives, sweethearts, brothers, sisters, friends. They
have their clubs and meeting places, and they unload their information
and knowledge, mixed with opportunity, to ears greedy for advancement,
and opportunities for betterment.
They scatter broadcast high aspirations and incentives to progress among
the ten millions of the posterity of the patrons of the old Underground
Railroad.
Through this means the most astounding results have been
accomplished—results that have never happened any other race since the
world began.
The Israelites dwelt in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years, and
waited for a Moses to come and lead them out of their unpleasant
environments. There were about six hundred thousand of them, and most of
their posterity are still dreaming of the past.
The four millions that started the Underground Railroad, have increased
to ten millions in a generation and a half, and they led themselves out
to the promised land.