the communication sent them: The Afro-American editor should, most assuredly, know for what he is striving, and the public, in whose welfare he is interested, should know, through this medium, in what way he is using his freedom in their behalf. Will you, as an Afro-American editor, kindly consent to give me your purpose in journalism, and your views as to the mission of Afro-American newspapers?
Dr. Coppin was requested to give his views upon "Our Work as Journalists;" while Mrs. Mossell was asked to give hers upon "The Power of the Press," and "Our Women in Journalism." How near the views of these writers meet the expressions of the many whose opinions will be found in the preceding chapter of this book, can be readily seen by the editor and reader. As Mr. Fortune says in his letter: "Editors are servants of the people, more than any other class of servants," and, as such, the people's right to understand in what way their servants are striving for their total freedom, is a right of theirs which in no way can be denied.
Opinion of T. Thomas Fortune.
If the institution of slavery hung for four years upon a doubtful contingency, and was overthrown at last by the proclamation of President Lincoln and the obstinacy of President Davis, it will readily be perceived that the final adjustment of the questions arising from the conditions of negro citizenship offers as many snares for the wary feet of statesmen of the present and the future, as did the questions growing out of the conditions of the negro as a slave to statesmen of the past, many of whom beat themselves to death against those questions, and carried with them to the grave their shattered hopes and tarnished fame.
If the negro did not carry with him in his face a proclamation of his race and previous condition of servitude, as
