It is important and
right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more
important that we be prepared for the exercises of these privileges.
The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth
infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-
house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given
us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the
white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here
bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the
struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-
handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the
great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the
South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my
race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from
representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest,
of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far
above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let
us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and
racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer
absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the
mandates of law.
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