Dr. Booker T. Washington to the National Negro Business League

Poet and community leader in Louisville, Kentucky, Cotter was raised in poverty with no formal education until the age of 22. He later became an educator and an advocate of black education. He is the author of six books of poetry and a collection of short stories collected under the title of "Negro Tales."

'Tis strange indeed to hear us plead For selling and for buying When yesterday we said: "Away With all good things but dying." The world's ago, and we're agog To have our first brief inning; So let's away through surge and fog However slight the winning. What deeds have sprung from plow and pick! What bank-rolls from tomatoes! No dainty crop of rhetoric Can match one of potatoes. Ye orators of point and pith, Who force the world to heed you, What skeletons you'll journey with Ere it is forced to feed you. A little gold won't mar our grace, A little ease our glory. This wo