The police would have
interfered but "Uncle Tom" told me to say what I pleased, and he would
stand by me. I went up to the state university with students who tried
to get a hall for me to speak to them but they could not. I spoke from the
steps. In the midst of the speech and the cheers from the boys I heard a
voice at my side. I looked and there stood the Principal, Prexley Prather.
He was white with excitement, saying: "Madam, we do not allow
such." I said: "I am speaking for the good of these boys." "We
do not allow speaking on the campus." I said: "I have spoken to the
students at Ann Arbor, at Harvard, at Yale, and I will speak to the boys
of Texas." The boys gave a yell. The mail man was driving up at this
time. The horse took fright, the letters and papers flew in every direction.
The man jumped from the sulky; the horse ran up against a tree and
was stopped. I offered to pay for the broken shafts but the mail carrier
would take nothing. There was no serious damage and all had a
good laugh, except, perhaps, the dignified principal.
When I visited the students at Ann Arbor, Mich., I was given a banquet
by the Woolley club of the university. It gave me new life to look
at such men of intellectual and moral force. Oh! for such men to be the
fathers of the rising generation. Just such men as these will save the
Nation. THESE are the hatchets that will smash up evil and build up
good.
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