So both approved it, and to-day its author is
certainly the most distinguished Southerner since Jefferson
Davis, and the one with the largest personal following.
Next to this achievement comes Mr. Washington's work in
gaining place and consideration in the North. Others less
shrewd and tactful had formerly essayed to sit on these two
stools and had fallen between them; but as Mr. Washington
knew the heart of the South from birth and training, so by
singular insight he intuitively grasped the spirit of the age
which was dominating the North. And so thoroughly did he
learn the speech and thought of triumphant commercialism,
and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone
black boy poring over a French grammar amid the weeds and
dirt of a neglected home soon seemed to him the acme of
absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St. Francis of
Assisi would say to this.
And yet this very singleness of vision and thorough one-
ness with his age is a mark of the successful man. It is as
though Nature must needs make men narrow in order to give
them force. So Mr. Washington's cult has gained unquestion-
ing followers, his work has wonderfully prospered, his friends
are legion, and his enemies are confounded.
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