[FROM an address by Booker T. Washington before the Twentieth Century Club. Reported in Boston Transcript.]

What is freedom, and how obtained? The child who wants to spend time in play, rather than in study, mistakes play for freedom. The spendthrift who parts with his money as soon as it is received, mistakes spending for freedom. The young man who craves the right to drink and gamble mistakes debauchery for freedom. The man who claims the right to idle away his days upon the street, rather than to spend them in set hours of labor, mistakes loafing for freedom. And so, all through human experience, we find that the highest and most complete freedom comes slowly, and is purchased only at tremendous cost. Freedom comes through seeming restriction; those are most truly free to-day who have passed through great discipline. Those persons in the United States who are most truly free in body, mind, morals, are those who have passed through the most severe training, are those who have exercised the most patience and at the same time the most dogged persistence and determination.

To deal more practically and directly with the affairs of my own race, I believe that both the teachings of history, as well as the results of every-day observation, should convince us that we shall make our most enduring progress by laying the foundations carefully, patiently, in the ownership of the soil, the exercise of habits of economy, the saving of money, the securing of the most complete education of hand and head, and the cultivation of Christian virtues. There is nothing new or startling in this. It is the old, old road that all races that have got upon their feet and have remained there have had to travel. Standing as I do to-day before this audience, when the very soul of my race is aching, is seeking for guidance as perhaps never before, I say deliberately that I know no other road. If I knew how to find more speedy and prompt relief I should be a coward and a hypocrite if I did not point the way to it.

As a slave the negro was worked. As a freeman he must learn to work. There is a vast difference between working and being worked. Being worked means degradation; working means civilization. There is still doubt in many quarters as to the ability of the negro, unguided, unsupported, to hew his own path and put into visible, tangible, indisputable form products and signs of civilization. This doubt cannot be much affected by mere abstract arguments, no matter how delicately and convincingly woven together. Patiently, quietly, doggedly, persistently, through summer and winter, sunshine and shadow, by self-sacrifice, by foresight, by honesty and industry, we must re-enforce argument with results. One farm bought, one house built, one home sweetly and intelligently kept, one man who is the largest taxpayer or has the largest bank account, one school or church maintained, one factory running successfully, one truck garden profitably cultivated one patient cured by a negro doctor, one sermon well preached, one office well filled, one life cleanly lived, these will tell more in our favor than all the abstract eloquence that can be summoned to plead our cause. Our pathway must be up through the soil, up through swamps, up through forests, up through the streams, the rocks, up through commerce, education, and religion.

If you ask me to state in detail just what will happen, and how and when it will happen,—just what attitude each race will assume toward the other, and how each will act in a given case, when the conditions of growth on which I have laid emphasis have been fulfilled,—if you ask this of me, I must answer frankly that I do not know. One can no more tell that than he can tell the day and the hour when the corn will ripen. We only know that if conditions prescribed by nature are complied with, at some time and in some manner the corn will ripen and be gathered into the garner. Duty is with us; results are with God.

I have referred to the task that my race must perform if it would effectually emancipate itself. But there is another side. The white race, North and South, also has a duty and a serious responsibility.

In connection with our presence in this country it should always be borne in mind that, unlike other races, we not only were forced to come into this country against our will, but were brought here in the face of our most earnest protest. Both as slaves and as freemen, we have striven to serve the interests of this country as best we could. We have cleared forests, builded railways, tunnelled mountains, grown the cotton and the rice, and we have always stood ready to defend the flag. We have never disturbed the country by riots, strikes, or lockouts. Ours has been a peaceful, faithful service and life.

In the face of all this I cannot believe, I will not believe, that a country that invites into its midst every type of European, from the highest to the very dregs of the earth, and gives these comers shelter, protection, and the highest encouragement, will refuse to accord the same protection and encouragement to her black citizens. I repeat here what I have often said in the South. The negro seeks no special privileges. All that he seeks is opportunity,—that the same law which is made by the white man and applied to the one race, be applied with equal certainty and exactness to the other. And when I say this I repeat also that which I have said directly to the members of more than one state constitutional convention in the South; namely, that any revised state constitution that is capable of being twisted into one interpretation when an ignorant white man is concerned and another when an ignorant black man is concerned will not represent entire justice nor the highest statesmanship. These new constitutions should premium upon good citizenship, for both races, and wherever they fail to do this they are weak and are not in the best interests of the state.

When in any country there are laws which are not respected, which are trampled under foot and made to mean one thing when applied to one race and another thing when applied to another race, there is not only injustice, for which in the end the nation must pay the penalty, but there is hardening and blunting of the conscience, there is sapping of the growth of human beings in kindness, justice, and all the higher, purer, and sweeter things in life. No race can degrade another without degrading itself. No race can assist in the lifting up of another without itself being broadened and made more Christlike.

Before I conclude, I want to make one request and suggestion, and I do so with all the earnestness of my soul,—with a full knowledge and realization of the present condition and anxieties of my race. That request is that you white men of the North, and the white men of the South, approach the solution of the negro question with coolness, with that calmness, that deliberation, and that sense of justice and foresight with which you approach any other problem in business or national affairs. On most other subjects white men use their reason, not their feelings; but in considering the subject of the colored man, in most cases, there are evidences of passion—a tendency to exaggerate and to make a sensation out of the most innocent and the most meaningless events. This is not the way to settle great national questions. While the North and the South argue in heated passion, the negro suffers.

The age for settling great questions, either social or national, with the shot-gun, the torch, and by lynchings, has passed. An appeal to such methods is unworthy of either race. I may be in doubt about some things connected with our future, but of one thing I feel perfectly sure, and that is that ignorance and race hatred are no solution for any problem on earth. No one can ever lift up a race by continually calling attention to its weak points. The negro, like other races, should be judged in a large degree by its best elements rather than by its weakest.

When measured by the standard of eternal, or even present justice, that race is greatest that has learned to exhibit the greatest patience, the greatest self-control, the greatest forbearance, the greatest interest in the poor, in the unfortunate,—that has been able to live up in a high and pure atmosphere, and dwell above hatred and acts of cruelty. He who would be greatest must become the least.

Though often beset behind and before, and on the right and on the left, with difficulties that would seem well-nigh insurmountable, I have the most complete faith in the ultimate adjustment of all the perplexing questions that weigh heavily upon us. More and more, as a race, we are learning to exclaim with one of old,—

Divine love is perfect peace and joy, it is a freedom from all disquiet, it is all content and mere happiness; and makes everything to rejoice in itself. Love is the Christ of God; wherever it comes, it comes as the blessing and happiness of every natural life, as the restorer of every lost perfection, a redeemer from all evil, a fulfiller of all righteousness, and a peace of God which passeth all understanding. Through all the universe of things, nothing is uneasy, unsatisfied, or restless, save when it is not governed by Love, or because its nature has not reached or attained the full birth of the spirit of love. For when that is done, every hunger is satisfied, and all complaining, murmuring, accusing, resenting, revenging, and striving, are as totally suppressed and overcome, as the coldness, thickness, and horror of darkness are suppressed and overcome, by the breaking forth of light. If you ask why the spirit of love cannot be disappointed, cannot complain, accuse, resent, or murmur, it is because Divine Love desires nothing but itself; it is its own good, it has all when it has itself, because nothing is good but itself and its own working; for Love is God; "and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God." Just so much and so far as you are freed from the folly of all earthly affections, from all disquiet, trouble, and complaint about this or that, just so much and so far is the spirit of love come to life in you. For Divine love is a new life and a new nature, and introduces you into a new world; it puts an end to all your former opinions, notions, and tempers; it opens new senses in you, and makes you see high to be low, and low to be high; wisdom to be foolishness, and foolishness wisdom; it makes prosperity and adversity, praise and dispraise to be equally nothing. "When I was a child," says the apostle, "I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Whilst man is under the power of nature, governed only by worldly wisdom, his life, however old he may be, is quite childish; everything about him only awakens childish thoughts and pursuits in him; all that he sees and hears, all that he desires or fears, likes or dislikes; that which he gets, and that which he loses; that which he has and that which he has not, serve only to carry him from this portion of evil to that portion of good, from one vanity of peace to another vanity of trouble. But when Divine love is born in the soul, all childish images of good and evil are done away, and all the sensibility of them is lost, as the stars lose their visibility when the sun is risen.

From "The Spirit of Love" by WILLIAM LAW.

Let thy face, like Moses', shine to others, but make no looking-glass for thyself.—JEREMY TAYLOR.