"
The part of the speech which seems to arouse the wildest and most
sensational enthusiasm was that in which I thanked the President
for his recognition of the Negro in his appointments during the
Spanish-American war. The President was sitting in a box at the
right of the stage. When I addressed him I turned toward the box,
and as I finished the sentence thanking him for his generosity,
the whole audience rose and cheered again and again, waving
handkerchiefs and hats and canes, until the President arose in
the box and bowed his acknowledgements. At that the enthusiasm
broke out again, and the demonstration was almost indescribable.
One portion of my address at Chicago seemed to have been
misunderstood by the Southern press, and some of the Southern
papers took occasion to criticise me rather strongly. These
criticisms continued for several weeks, until I finally received
a letter from the editor of the Age-Herald, published in
Birmingham, Ala., asking me if I would say just what I meant by
this part of the address. I replied to him in a letter which
seemed to satisfy my critics. In this letter I said that I had
made it a rule never to say before a Northern audience anything
that I would not say before an audience in the South. I said that
I did not think it was necessary for me to go into extended
explanations; if my seventeen years of work in the heart of the
South had not been explanation enough, I did not see how words
could explain.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270