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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 35. The Negro Protest - 3. The Tuskegee Compromise
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An American Dilemma
740
his pillar of fire by night and pillar of cloud by day shall be property, economy,
education, and Christian character. To us just now these are the wheat, all else the
chaflF.®
Kelly Miller gives a characterization of Booker T. Washington in con-
tradistinction to Frederick Douglass, which sets these two Negro leaders
in a frame of the two spiritual tendencies of American culture at large:
the uncompromising spirit of the American Creed and the spirit of busi-
ness realism:
The radical and conservative tendencies of the Negro race cannot be better
described than by comparing, or rather contrasting, the two superlative colored men in
whom we find their highest embodiment—Frederick Douglass and Booker Wash-
ington, who were both picked out and exploited by white men as the mouthpiece and
intermediaries of the black race. ’The two men are in part products of their times,
but are also natural antipodes. Douglass lived in the day of moral giants; Washington
lives in the era of merchant princes. The contemporaries of Douglass emphasized
the rights of men ;
those of Washington, his productive capacity. The age of Douglass
acknowledged the sanction of the Golden Rule; that of Washington worships the
Rule of Gold, The equality of men was constantly dinned into Douglass’s ears;
Washington hears nothing but the inferiority of the Negro and the dominance of the
Saxon. Douglass could hardly receive a hearing today; Washington would have been
hooted off the stage a generation ago. Thus all truly useful men must be, in a
measure, time servers; for unless they serve their time, they can scarcely serve at all.
But great as was the diversity of formative influences that shaped these two great
lives, there is no less opposability in their innate bias of character. Douglass was like
a lion, bold and fearless; Washington is lamblike, meek and submissive. Douglass
escaped from personal bondage, which his soul abhorred; but for Lincoln’s proclama-
tion, Washington would probably have arisen to esteem and favor in the eyes of his
master as a good and faithful servant. Douglass insisted upon rights; Washington
insists upon duty. Douglass held up for public scorn the sins of the white man;
Washington portrays the faults of his own race. Douglass spoke what he thought the
world should hear; Washington speaks only what he feels it is disposed to listen to.
Douglass’s conduct was actuated by principle; Washington’s by prudence. Douglass
had no limited, copyrighted programme for his race, but appealed to the Decalogue,
the Golden Rule, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United
States; Washington, holding these great principles in the shadowy background,
presents a practical expedient applicable to present needs. Douglass was a moralist
insisting upon the application of righteousness to public affairs; Washington is a
practical opportunist, accepting the best terms which he thinks it possible to secure.®
It is a political axiom that Negroes can never, in any period, hope to
attain more in the short-term fower bargain than the most benevolent
white groups are prepared to give them,* This much Washington attained.
With shrewd insight, Washington took exactly as much off the Negro
protest—and it had to be a big reduction—as was needed in order to get
“Sec Chapter 23, Section 1, and Chapter 39, Section 13.
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