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F ever a wandering editor had an all
around jubilee at any place at any time,
this writing talker or talking writer had
a regular orthodox, eighteen karat, dou
ble and twisted, “warranted not to rip,
rust nor run down at the heel” —fine,
large, able-bodied, portly JUBILEE at
Ackerman, Miss., on the occasion of my
second visit, April 19th, 20th and 21st
I
Amio Domini, 1909.
I had looked for a royal time following my de
lightful reception last December, but it went beyond
my dreams.
Os all school superintendents I have met
all over the land (and their courtesies are
always beautiful and refreshing), I have never
known one, I think, who knew his business better or
who had a clearer eye as to what a school community
needs, than Prof. J. D. Vandiver, of Ackerman. He
learned the necessary thing long ago that there are
some lessons not learned in books., and when he said
last December: “Come again before the term ends —
I want you to help wake up my people on the mean
ing of education.’’ I said in my heart: “That man
will move things in that community if all the peo
ple will awake and stand by him!”
They are waking and they are standing—or walk
ing, or running, or jumping—just whatever Vandiver
says.
I stopped 'by dear old Starkville just for one night,
with barely time to shake hands with the friends who
went with me to the very Gates of Glory in that won
derful meeting, two years ago last February, found
my treasured friend and royal brother, Pastor M. K.
Thornton away preaching in Alabama, and I spent
the night in the home-like home of just about the
greatest educator, I believe, I have ever seen at
the helm of a State school in all the South —John
Crumpton Hardy. I rejoiced to find him at his post
of duty again, after a long and almost fatal illness.
And I rejoiced, too, to see the grand old “A. & M.,”
the home each year of something like a thousand
boys and despite a season of clouds and misunder
standing, triumphant over them all, with the largest
attendance it has ever known at this season of the
year. The great new Stephen D. Lee Auditorium
had just been dedicated the day before with five
thousand people on the grounds. Verily, the Missis
sippi A. & M. is a little world in itself and under the
masterful hand of J. C. Hardy —scholar, orator, gen
tleman, Christian —is widening its wonderful influ
ence every day.
A Beautiful Sunday.
No other preaching in town on Sunday, and every
body in Ackerman, it seemed, was out at the pretty
Governor Vardaman ’s Mistake.
abroad just as surely, if not so widely, as Booker
Washington has done, Hubbard began to teach the
negro boys and girls honesty, purity and industry
along with industrial expansion and spiritual need
until the country for miles around is feeling, the
wholesome saving influence of his work. Evidently
he has lived as straight u life as any white man in
the community. Sometime ago I met this black
man on the train and said: “Hubbard, do you know
why the people white and black, have come to be
lieve in you so much?” “Why?” he asked. “Be
cause you have convinced them by your life that you
are what you claim to be —an honest, true Christian
man. ’ ’
And. then that negro looked into my face and
humbly said:
“Brother Upshaw, I ask God every day I live to
take me out of the world before I do anything to
bring reproach upon His cause.”
I have told that incident to many audiences over
the land and added: “Have you prayed that prayer
today? Do you love God’s cause that well? If not,
then remember that in God’s sight that black man
stands before you.”
And' all of us who wish to find them, know many
JITBILEZ AT ACKERMAN
new Baptist Church house, where the inimitable,
heroic J. R. Nutt is the beloved pastor.
And best of all, the Lord was there. New altars
were built in several homes as the result of God’s
blessings upon that beautiful Sabbath day.
“Come to the school,” said Superintendent Van-
IIIISi
it ♦ i& ' • ’
- I
“THREE TWINS.”
diver, “at any hour you please, and talk as long as
you please to my boys and girls.”
I wrote editorials in the morning and went just
before noon —and those bright boys and girls! Well,
I cannot tell just how nobly and generously they
did, treat me. I talked to them on “Believing you
can,” and told the story of the little engine with the
long train of freight ears, that said before it climbed
the grade, “I think I can,” and going down the
grade over the hill said: “I thought I could; I
thought I could!”
The Followed Their Children.
The school marched in a body through town, and
the merchants closed their doors that afternoon and
followed their children to the court house to hear
a talk on “The Real Meaning of Education and
Community Improvement.” And after I had sought
other honest negro men who have been prepared by
heroic souls through practical Christian education
for such saving leadership among their people.
And the man who opposes and swears at such
training for the negro is blind —pitifully blind to the
greatest need of the South’s greatest problem and
is an enemy —we measure our words — a practical
enemy to his day and generation.
While the negro was unfortunately in politics in
the 'South the average politician tried to keep himself
in office by buying the negro with money or liquor.
Now that he is comparatively out of politics, there
are men, alas! in every State, who still make the
negro a political asset if not an entity, by lifting
a great black shadow and walking in that shadow
to opulence and renown. And the early passing of
such men from political leadership will be the great
est boon to our Christian civilization, that the South
or the Nation has ever known.
Os course this is a white man’s government. It
must be —it will be forever. The safety of both
races demands it. But the negro can-
A White
Man’s
Government.
The Golden Age for May 6, 1909.
not be deported. He must remain
here. Then one of two things must be
done: Annihilation or mental, moral
and spiritual elevation! There is no
to impress the fact that school houses are not built
to enhance the value of property nor education
sought and acquired and used simply for making
money or winning fame, but to enable its possessor
to do more real good in the world, then I struck
‘ 1 Civic Improvement, ’ ’ and the fun I did have with
that crowd will go with me to my dying day.
I didn’t mean a bit of harm by it —and I don’t
now, but for the benefit of some good folks who had
opposed bonds for electric lights and water works, a
told the story of a Georgia school teacher (a fact!),
who wanted the hotel boy to bring her a match to
light the electric bulb, saying: “You’d better come
back here and bring me a match —I might want to
light that thing when you ain’t around.”
Then when the crowd was through laughing, I
got myself into a sort of monkey shape, marched
across the court bar, bent over and said: “Ladies
and gentlemen, from all accounts, I think that young
lady must have hailed from the town of Ackerman,
Miss., where she never saw such a thing as an elec
tric light!”
And then the house exploded—l mean the electric
light advocates, while the others took the good
humored “dry grins,” and seemed just about ready
to vote for bonds.
That night at my platform lecture I went out of
the way and told my audience the story of the man
who had asafoeida in his pocket, and of whom his
little boy said: Pa’s dead and don’t know it.”
Next morning a petition for an issue of $20,000 in
bonds to put in electric lights and water works was
being circulated mighty soon after breakfast.
About everybody signed it, and my friends are
generous enough to say that the Georgia man must
come back when they “strike a match” to turn on
the electric light. Ha! ha! ha!!!
A Case of “Three Twins.”
The picture on this page is a clear ease of three
twins. The big, fat man in the middle is Charlie
Torbert, who is nearly as big as a hogshead of “De
morara” sugar and is just about as sweet. He loves
Ackerman so well that he would take the whole town
up if he could and trot it on his knee. As he couldn’t
quite do that he took my loyal friend, J. R. Nutt,
and the editor of The Golden Age on each knee, and
held us close to his big heart —a heart bigger by the
way, than his superb and imposing avoirdupois. In
all my way over this big old world I have met f ew
such combinations as the body and heart of Charles
A. Torbert, of Ackerman, Miss.
Next time I’ll tell about other fine towns, but now
I can only “holler”: “Hurrah for Ackerman and
electric lights!” W. D. U.
middle ground. None but a barbarian would wish
the former —all good men and wise must wish and
strive for the latter.
And if proper Christian training does not save and
solve the mighty problem then we might as well blow
out the light and plunge our nation into darkness,
proving the God of nations to be a failure and the
future of both white and black one starless everlast
ing night.
Dr. J. L. M. Curry said: “Ignorance is no remedy
for anything.”
n h
"T en Thousand Parts.”
(From Atlanta (Tex.) Journal.)
Mr. and Mrs. Goodnight, of Kildare, came up to
the lecture last Thursday night. Mr. Goodnight,
after listening to “John and His Hat,” said to
Mr. Will D. Upshaw, in the presence of a circle of
friends: “I wish you could divide yourself into
ten thousand parts and each part deliver that lec
ture to the young people in as many different places
at the same time. ’ ’ Mr. Upshaw had a large audi
ence who appreciated his lecture all the way
through.
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