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142 THE CRISIS

work of operations covering the whole country. Several hundred newspapers are owned and published by colored people. Several thousand colored physicians are engaged in a lucrative practice, and individuals from time to time as authors, speakers, musicians, artists and inventors.
How has all this come about? Are these simply the spontaneous phenomena of the new atmosphere of freedom? Such developments do not come in that way. There have been intelligent causes behind them. The explanation lies in the work of the teachers. Starting with those who began their service in the old barracks, at first only a few but soon increasing to many hundred—they planted in the eager pupils who gathered in their schools the strong seeds of a new life. They were no ordinary teachers. Usually of superior parentage, brought up in Christian homes of rare privilege, educated in the best schools and colleges of the United States, they went to their service as to a sacred ministry, and they met its hard tasks with a fidelity and devotion not often surpassed. 
It has been the fashion in certain quarters to disparage the endeavors of the teachers who came down from the North, and to say that their instructions were ill adapted to the necessities of such a people, that too much use was made of books and too little of things that could be grasped with the hand. Such criticisms overlooked the conditions and circumstances that had to be dealt with. Those teachers attacked the desperate situation that confronted them in the only way they could. They taught in the manner they had been taught themselves, in the manner other teachers were doing their work in schools all over the country, North and South. They used such methods and text books as they had to use; how could they employ such as had not yet been thought of? 
But the vital thing in a teacher is not methods or artificial devices of any kind; it is an indefinable power of spiritual personality. Many of these teachers had this quality in large measure. They had those faiths of which I have been speaking. They believed in the worth of their pupils, however unattractive, and however others might laugh at their faith; they believed in effort to bring out dormant faculties and made their schools hives of industry; they believed in example and lived a good life, the best of all lessons and the one to be longest remembered; they believed in the unfoldings of character, to come how and when they could not tell, and they were content to wait. There is a mysterious contagion like these, and those who gave themselves to this service fifty years ago have not wanted for successors. The score of names has gone on increasing from year to year and it is increasing still; and their pupils following with steadfast purpose the standards of life and character instilled into them have grown to be like their teachers till they have reproduced their faith and service in every town and village of the land. 
If the teachers in the many thousand colored schools of to-day would have incentive to their hope and inspiration for their service they can do no better than to look back to those first schools, recall the spirit of those pioneer teachers, and reflect on the harvests that have ripened from their seed sowing.  

"THE WHITE MAN'S BURDEN"
By CHARLES S. NUTTER, D. D.

Hast thou a Saxon face? No fault of thine,
No virtue, too. Thy brothers nearly all 
Are brown of various shades. Rare man,
reflect,
Is merit in the hue? Boast not; pray God,
He bleach thy soul to match thy pallid face.

GENERAL EVARISTO ESTENOZ
By ARTHUR A. SCHOMBURG

THE cable has flashed over the world the news that in Cuba General Evaristo Estenoz has taken up the gage of.battle for the rights of his dark fellowmen, and that a crisis in Cuba is the result. General Estanoz was born at Santiago de Cuba, the birthplace of revolutionary conspiracies. He is a builder by occupation and a soldier who has won fame by his record in many bloody engagements. 
Soon after the close of the Cuban War and the establishment of the republic, he associated himself with Rafael Serra, the lamented Negro philosopher, who wrote a book, "For Whites and Blacks," a collection of essays, arguing that since both races had fought to make the republic possible, they should enjoy in common the burdens and the benefits of the country. These two gentlemen, the lawmaker and the warmaker, visited New York in the summer of 1905. Though different in temperaments and political affiliations they had one object, namely, to study conditions with the view to submitting the result in Cuba and improving matters at home. 
Serra died soon after their return and the work of the pen fell on the shoulders of Estenoz. The new Independent Colored Party was formed and incorporated; its object being to promote the interests of the colored race, to urge the government to recognize their rights as citizens and taxpayers, and to accord them a fair proportion of the elective and appointive offices. 
The Independent Colored Party was looked upon in its infancy as one of the many booms started by Negroes which would soon die, but as time grew it gathered into its fold men who were veterans of two and three wars, and clubs sprung up like mushrooms all over the island. In a year there was a club for every city, and the party had a membership of over 600,000 Negro voters— an organization, in short, capable of thwarting the prearranged plans of whites. It became a matter of political expediency at first to belittle and finally to crush the attempt of the Negro leaders. The organ of the Negro party, called Prevision, was a weekly newspaper of eight pages, ably edited by Estenoz. So great was the demand for this publication that the press could not turn out enough copies to supply the thousands of readers.
The new party was a success and it augured no good to President Gomez. When the government found that it could not deal with the situation, it turned to the late Negro senator, M. Morua Delgado, the president of the senate. It persuaded him to introduce in that body his notorious "Amendment No. 17" of the electoral law, which, in effect, forbade the formation of any political party along racial lines. For this perfidy Delgado was rewarded with the appointment to the portfolio of secretary of war, but he was ever afterward looked upon by the Negroes of Cuba as a Judas, go out and hang himself, he died, it is said, of a broken heart.
Nothing could have been more exasperating to the Negroes of Cuba than the Morua law. From the moment of its adoption to the present period they have consistently opposed its enforcement. General Estenoz, whose money and influence had contributed to the election of President Gomez, was hailed as the man of the future.
The Negroes began to realize, when their leaders were thrown into prison on the eve of election, that the white Cubans had determined that they should not have any representation save what was bestowed on them as a charity. The Cuban Negroes are sensitive and well informed; but for them the revolutions through which Cuba has passed would have been impossible. But to-day an unconstitutional law, as infamous and despicable as the American Dred Scott decision, which declared that "Negroes had no rights which white men are bound to respect," deprives the Negroes of Cuba of political character and independence. They are hinted by spies, threatened with imprisonment and misrepresented in the press whenever they attempt to assert their rights.
During the colonial days of Spain the Negroes were better treated, enjoyed a greater measure of freedom and happiness than they