was composed of about twenty-five of the most prominent and most
influential white men of Georgia. All the members of this committee
were white men except Bishop Grant, Bishop Gaines, and myself. The
Mayor and several other city and State officials spoke before the
committee. They were followed by the two coloured bishops. My name
was the last on the list of speakers. I had never before appeared
before such a committee, nor had I ever delivered any address in the
capital of the Nation. I had many misgivings as to what I ought to
say, and as to the impression that my address would make. While I
cannot recall in detail what I said, I remember that I tried to impress
upon the committee, with all the earnestness and plainness of any
language that I could command, that if Congress wanted to do something
which would assist in ridding the South of the race question and making
friends between the two races, it should in every proper way encourage
the material and intellectual growth of both races. I said that the
Atlanta Exposition would present an opportunity for both races to show
what advance they had made since freedom, and would at the same time
afford encouragement to them to make still greater progress.

I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be
deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone
would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property,
industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race
without these elements could permanently succeed. I said that in
granting the appropriation Congress could do something that would prove
to be of real and lasting value to both races, and that it was the
first great opportunity of the kind that had been presented since the
close of the Civil War.

I spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes, and was surprised at the close