Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/471

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OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN.
463

needs to be given to the principles of political economy and to their practical exemplification among us. The money men of the race should invest in enterprises calculated to give us a standing in the great mining, manufacturing, and commercial pursuits of the land.

The negro must be taught thorough race pride and confidence. He should be urged to combine in various kinds of business enterprises, and pay less attention to petty organizations, limited largely to ministrations to the sick and the burial of the dead. If the papers will discuss the welfare of the race along these lines, a reformation and revolution will take place, that must bring the negro and his Press in thorough assimilation with his country and age. This may not come in the memory of the youngest child now living; still it must come, and if the acquisition of this power rests upon good character, nothing beneath the sun can displace the negro.

Opinion of Hon. Josiah T. Settle, LL. B.

Considering the many difficulties which the negro has encountered in journalism, the Press in his hands, has been as great a success as thoughtful men could have anticipated. When his opportunities to prepare himself for journalism, and the length of time he has been actively engaged in it, and the field to which his opportunities are principally confined are considered, there can be no question as to the success of the Press in the hands of the negro. No other race, laboring under the same difficulties, has, in the same time, done as well.

The Afro-American editor has demonstrated the capacity of his race to win success and distinction in every department of life in which he finds his white brother a competitor. He has, by his capacity for his work, both natural and acquired,