and shall have assimilated fully with the white Press, and be considered a component part of the news-bearing instruments of our country, and, I might add, of the world.
2d. The achievements of the Afro-American editor have been of a twofold character, and they presage the final triumph, if he adjust his views to the advancement of the public thought; or if he keep pace with the progressive ideas appertaining to a wide-awake country and age like ours. His constituents, when he first began to mold public sentiment among them, had small conception of the power of the Press. In the years that have elapsed a change has been going on, and the negro has given tangible proof of it in the increased patronage he has given his own Press.
3d. It is hardly necessary to state that the efficiency of the negro Press is the measure of its support. I have already intimated that our newspapers must be cosmopolitan. An intelligent man wishes to know the doings of all the people of his own country and of the civilized world. The negro is but a fractional part of it. A paper that purports to contain the news must be a medium of it all. In looking at the negro Press from this standard, it is clearly seen that it lacks proper support from those for whom it is especially published.
4th. While party fealty, according to the shibboleth of very modern politics, deserves recognition, it may be safe to assert that the great masses of all parties are far more interested in good government than in political preferment. The negro's attention should never be divorced from an intelligent appreciation of and interest in the affairs and principles of good government; but he needs to be told plainly, positively, and continually, that neither parties nor office can, in themselves, bring him place, unchanging power, and unfailing consideration in this country.
Far greater attention, now and for a long time to come,
