I beg to acknowledge receipt of the clipping which you return to me; it was not important but I thank you just the same.

Potts have accepted my article on the disfranchisement of the Negro. I take a firm stand for manhood suffrage and the enforcement of the constitutional amendments. I take no stock whatever in these disfranchisement constitutions. The South is suffering a great deal more from the malignity of the whites than the ignorance of the Negro. I have wondered whether your book on the "Souls of Black Folk" had any direct effect in stirring up the peonage investigation in Alabama; it might well have done so.

I have not forgotten what you say about a national Negro journal. It is a matter concerning which one would like to think and consult before committing himself. There are already many "colored" papers; how they support themselves may be guessed at from the contents—most of them are mediums for hair straightening advertisements and the personal laudation of "self-made men", most of whom are not so well made that they really ought to brag much about it. The question of support would be the vital one for such a journal. What the Negro needs more than anything else is a medium through which he can present his case to thinking white people, who after all are the arbiters of our destiny. How helpless the Negro is in the South your own writings give ample proof; while