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and Mr. V.R.B.Dubois are widely recognised as the highest exponents
of these respective theories. To the average person there is no
intermediate grounds between these two schools of thought, it being
almost universally assumed that between them every possible interest
of the Negro is being faithfully served. The growth of this idea
has schooled the public to regard with indifference, not to say im-
patience, any individual or any movement which is not, either direct-
ly or indirectly, an exponent of one of these "schools." Nor can it
be denied that both of these theories are serving the race a high
purpose. Neither can it be denied, on the other hand, that neither
of these theories, nor both of them combined, are meeting the funda-
mental needs of the Negro by checking the growth of hostility be-
tween the races and by causing to be opened to the Negro, rather than
closed against him, the doors of economic opportunity. But the Wash-
ington school of thought would seem to be the more practical of the
two, because it fosters those essential principles of self-help and
individual fitness without which no race can be other than at a tre-
mendous disadvantage. But this theory stops short by almost com-
pletely ignoring the patent fact that an untrammelled opportunity
to ply a trade is of vastly more fundamental importance than is any
mere opportunity to learn a trade. The other "school', however rep-
resents little more than a perpetual protest which, however just and
impressive it may sometimes be, never so much as hints at a specif-
ic method for striking at the roots of the evils of which it so per-
sistently complains. Indeed, neither of these "schools" takes into
consideration and seeks to remove the basic causes which, despite
the educational propaganda of the one and the condemnatory propagan-
da of the other, are antagonizing and estranging the races in an un-
precedented manner of late years (as witness the avalanche of host-
ile and oppressive legislation now directed against Negroes, and the
rapidly-spreading tendency to segregate repress and intimidate them
and to deny them contact with other citizens) in the face of which
it is the grossest madness to contend that Negroes can long hord
their own in this country, to say nothing of making any substantial
progress.

It is this intermediate and almost completely ignored
ground which this movement seeks to cover. Not only the "Congrega-
tionalist", but every intelligent person who has so far detached
himself from the grooved lines of thought of this and that "school"
as to consider the principles of this movement on their own merit,
has heartily approved its basic idea: That the only possible means
of righteously adjusting differences between the races lay in up-
right Negroes combining, through their churches and otherwise, to
curb and repress the obnoxious elements among them, to whose civic
and political short-comings may be traced almost every hostile meas-
ure that plagues the race to-day; and in upright white people agree-
ing, especially through their churches, to apply such rules of social
and economic justice in their dealings with Negroes as measurably
accord with the accepted ideas of Christian civilization.

Your deep interest in the Negro is widely appreciated. I
am sending you this matter in the earnest hope that you may be im-
pelled to study the position and needs of that race from another
and more vital angle--an angle upon the speedy recognition and ad-
justment of which must inevitably depend the future hope of the Ne-
gro in this country.

Very respectfully yours,

J. S. [Stevons?]
83401