lighthouse and a safeguard, so far as the morality and intelligence of our race is concerned. You must put yourself in the place of the young black man, especially in these large cities. In too many cases the places that elevate are closed to him; the places that degrade are open to him. In all fairness, my friends, judge my race by the best that it can produce, and not by the worst. Judge us by the magnificent specimens of manhood who are going out from these colleges carrying the influence of the Young Men's Christian Association; judge us by the five thousand one hundred members of this association in the South, and not by men in the penitentiaries. Judge us by those who are living in Christian homes, who are taxpayers, and not by those who are in dens of sin and misery; not by those who have yielded to temptation, but by those who have withstood it. Think of it, my friends: twenty savages a little over three hundred years ago coming into this country shackled in chains, enslaved in ignorance-twenty savages! Out of these twenty savages within less than three hundred years have grown up the twenty-three city associations and sixty-three college associations, reaching thousands of men throughout the South. Is there anything more marvelous in history than the transformation which has taken place within so short a time? This work among my people in the South not only pays spiritually and intellectually, but it pays, if you please, in dollars and cents. Every dollar invested in the Young Men's Christian Association work in city or in college is an interest-bearing dollar. Every dollar so spent makes the black man more substantial as a taxpayer and more reliable as a Christian citizen.

It is a great thing to touch a cause that lifts us into an atmosphere where one individual can sympathize and work for another, regardless of race and color. No man can do his best and highest work when his activities and sympathies are limited by race, or color, or nationality; and the South is beginning to learn through such agencies as the Young Men's Christian Association that it pays to put brains in the head of its young men, that it pays to inculcate religious ideas in their hearts.

A few years ago the State of Mississippi was asked to divide the school fund in proportion to the amount of taxes paid by each race. The State of Mississippi refused to make any such division. Later, the States of Georgia and Alabama were asked to do the same thing, and they have all practically refused to yield to that temptation. They know that intelligence and Christianity are more valuable in the young manhood of those states than ignorance and degradation. I have sometimes heard it stated that all of the money that has been spent in helping up my people through these agencies-through the Young Men's Christian Association, through the Christian colleges and in other directions-has been little less than wasted, and that the

negro has made no progress in the South. By what do you judge progress? In some slight degree the white man in America judges progress by the material surroundings and accumulations of the individual. Starting in poverty and ignorance, less than forty years ago, my race in the State of Virginia already pays taxes upon one-twenty-sixth of all the land in that State. In that State, in the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the negro owns one-sixteenth of all the land—in Middlesex County one-seventh-in Hanover one-sixth. Does not that mean that the money you have spent in support of Mr. Hunton's and Mr. Moorland's work, is bearing some fruit? In Georgia, the negro pays more taxes, and the negro taxpayer does not always give in all his property for the purpose of taxation, I am sorry to say—any more than the white taxpayer does, --but the negro pays taxes upon $14,000,000 worth of property and he owns one million six hundred and seventy-five acres of land.

My friends, there is urgent call to multiply, to treble, the work represented by your Colored Men's Department in the South during the next ten years-where we have one association we need five; where now we have two of these international secretaries we need four or five more. If you will treble this work in the South, we will show you that we are becoming helpful Christian American citizens. I believe that it is through this association agency that the two races of the South can be held in sympathy and close cooperation. Wherever the flag of the Young Men's Christian Association floats and renders helpful and loving services to both races, there can be, will be, no war between the races.

I want to thank you again for the work you are doing for the young men of my race, because, as I have watched your operations you not only seek to save the soul of the young man in the next world, but you seek to save both his body and soul in this world. There is never any question, or squabble, or disagreement, about the negro's soul in the next world; all the trouble is about his body in this world. We all agree that everything in the next world is going to be all right, but I am thankful to you that you are grappling with the problem of getting the negro's body right in this world. More and more, he has got to learn to care for his body, to have it clean and pure in this world. You know as a race we are rather emotional. You can beat us when it comes to thinking, but when it comes to feeling we can beat you every time. The average black man can feel as much in ten minutes as the average white man in an hour. And we feel our religion more than you do. Through the medium of these organizations we are teaching our people that the best preparation for living in the next world is right living in this world.

One of the greatest things that you can do for a young black

man in the South is to assist Mr. Hunton and Mr. Moorland in making that young black man the most useful, the most reliable, Christian man in his community. Usefulness will constitute our most potent and lasting protection, whether we live in the North or whether we live in the South. We must be taught that we must pay for everything that we can get; that we cannot get something for nothing. In every part of the South this work needs to be enlarged. It must grow stronger, or it will grow weaker.

You remember the Bible injunction, "Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." If there has ever been a race which has obeyed that injunction, it is the black race in this country. I am very often asked if we don't grow discouraged; if our young men are not becoming disheartened and in danger of giving up in despair. But I reply: "Oh, no; the intelligent negro in this country has read American history; he has read his Bible and has faith in the white man and in God." He remembers that only a few centuries ago the negro went into slavery a piece of property, and he came out of slavery an American citizen. He went into slavery a pagan and he came out of slavery a Christian. He went into slavery without a language, and he came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. He went into slavery with a slave's chains clanking about his wrists and ankles, he came out with the spelling-book and the Bible, the hoe, and the plow in his hand. Often, however, we have to repeat with the Psalmist: "The floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves." But, with his triumphant faith, we can add: "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."

THE WORK OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION AMONG RAILROAD MEN*

JOHN J. MCCOOK

The association's work among railroad men is already widely established in the Dominion of Canada and in the United States, and since Mr. Hicks has made his recent visit to Mexico, looking over the ground and reporting as to openings there, if the usual results follow, our railroad associations will soon be planted along the transportation lines of our neighbors in that republic.

Recently there has been great activity in railroad affairs,

*On "Railroad Evening," when were given the addresses by Mr. John J. McCook and President Lucius Tuttle, Mr. Cephas Brainerd by special request made a short address in which he gave reminiscences of the early days of the railroad association work. He paid glowing tribute to four men whom he called "the four corner-stones at the beginning of the railroad work "-Henry W. Stager, Lang Sheaf, George W. Cobb, and William R. Davenport.

especially in Wall street. Fortunately, our association work does not always follow the movements of Wall street, where the "booms" come only occasionally, and there are often long and dull periods. But the association must always keep on steadily with its work day after day and year after year. The report of the International Committee that has been read before this convention called your attention to the fact that of the new associations organized during the past year, fifty per cent were railroad associations, and that twenty-five per cent of the entire increase in our membership came from that branch of the work.

The work now extends, as I have said, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and across the continent from ocean to ocean. There are one hundred and sixty working railroad associations. Forty thousand railroad men are members of the associations, and companies controlling seventy-five per cent of the entire railroad mileage of the United States contribute towards the support of this department.

Our railroad work is less than thirty years old. It started, like a great many other good things, in Ohio. After the first. association was organized at Cleveland and they had showed the rest of the country how to do it, the work was soon established in New York. The association almost at its inception attracted the attention of Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, who at that time was a junior official of the Harlem Railroad. About the same time the association work was brought to the attention of George B. Roberts of the Pennsylvania Railroad. All railroad men know that the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads set the standard, and anything that is good enough for them ought to be good enough for any of the rest of us. The influence and example of the officials of these two leading lines have from the start been invaluable.

The most notable feature of the work at this time is that it is going forward by leaps and bounds, by systems and not simply at isolated points. Formerly at some one point a division superintendent or a master mechanic could perhaps be interested, and a branch would be started when, after considerable delay, the approval of the senior officials had been secured. The growth of the work was conservative; it was safe and slow. But in the course of time the former junior officials who were favorable to our work have in many instances become chief officers, and thus happily there are now men at the head of nearly all the railroad systems, who because of their personal knowledge of the results accomplished are ready to encourage and advance this work. During the last few years, at the request of such officers, no less than ten railway systems have been investigated and reported upon by the international secretaries, and on most of these systems vigorous work is now being done. You may naturally ask what is likely to be the effect upon this associa

tion work of the great consolidation of railways now going on? I can see only good to this association in those consolidations. because the leading railroad men of the country who are at the head of these systems have personal knowledge of the work, and they will, I feel sure, extend it throughout the systems coming under their control.

I

It is interesting to note the influence of our American railroad work on the rest of the world. We are a young country, but we have been fairly prosperous and successful in certain things, and among these in the construction and operation of railways. During the last few years the managers of railways in Europe have been carefully studying what we are doing here. The most remarkable example of this was a visit recently made to this country by a distinguished railroad man. refer to Prince Hilkoff, the Minister of Ways of Transportation in Russia. While here he studied everything about our railroads, from the work of a chief executive down to the train and shopmen. He gave attention to every new application of power and to our methods of building and repairing machinery. He was a man that wanted to see everything connected with our railways and their operation, and, naturally, he drifted into one of our railroad association houses at Chicago, and when he came to New York, he visited the railroad association building there. He was so deeply impressed by what he saw that upon his return home he invited a visitation of Russian railways and railway men by our international railroad secretary, Mr. Hicks. As a result of this visit and the report of it which he received, he sent two high officials of the Russian railway service as commissioners to our railroad conference, which met at Philadelphia last autumn. They were accompanied by a representative of the Imperial German government. These men studied what we were doing in our railway associations very carefully and reported it to their respective governments, and we have assurances from Prince Hilkoff that so far as our American system of association work can be applied to the railways of Russia he proposes to give it his heartiest approval and concurrence.

This railroad work is very attractive. In the first place, there is something very striking and interesting about the men who run our American railways. I never see one of the men that drive an express locomotive on one of our great railways without feeling as much respect for him as for any man I ever come in contact with. Indeed, the operatives of our American railways are splendid men, and when such men get worked up or interested about any subject, as those men did in Cleveland in 1872, action is sure to follow. It was Christian railroad men that started this work for other railroad men. When they were convinced of their duty toward God, they were soon convinced of their duty to their fellow-men, and, like intelligent railroad men, they went right at the work. Nothing has added