CHAPTER IX.

BISHOP ALEXANDER WALTERS.BISHOP ALEXANDER WALTERS.

Born in Kentucky, August, 1858—Educated In the Common Schools of that State—At Thirty-five Elected Bishop of the A. M. E. Zion Church, Taking High Rank as a Theologian, Originator and First President of the National Afro American Council—Thinker, Orator and Leader.

Among the estimable friendships I made on the Pacific Coast forty years ago was Philip A. Bell, formerly of New York City, one of nature's noblemen, broad in his humanity and intellectually great as a journalist. As editor of The Elevator, a weekly newspaper still published in San Francisco, he made its pages brilliant with scintillations of elegance, wealth of learning, and vigor of advocacy. To his request for a correspondent I responded in a series of letters. I forbear to insert them here, as they describe the material and political status of British Columbia thirty-five years ago—being well aware that ancient history is not the most entertaining. But, as I read them I cannot but note, in the jollity of their introduction, the immature criticism, consciousness of human fallability, broadening of conclusions, mellowed by hope for the future that seemed typical of a life career. Like the horse in "Sheridan's Ride," their beginning "was gay, with Sheridan fifty miles away;" but if they were helpful with a truth-axiom or a moiety of inspiration—as a view of colonial conduct of a nation, with which we werethen and are now growing in affinity—the purpose was attained.

At first the affairs of British Columbia and Vancouver were administered by one Governor, the connection was but nominal; Vancouver Island had control by a representative Parliament of its own; the future seemed auspicious. Later they, feeling it "in fra dig" to divide the prestige of government, severed the connection. But Vancouver finding it a rather expensive luxury, and that the separation engendered strife and rivalry, terminating in hostile legislation, determined to permanently unite with British Columbia.

But alas, for political happiness. Many afterward sighed for former times, when Vancouver Island, proud beauty of the North, sat laving her feet in the genial waters of the Pacific, her lap verdant with beautiful foliage and delicious fruits; her head raised with peerless majesty to brilliant skies, while sunbeams playing upon a brow encircled by eternal snows reflected a sheen of glorious splendor; when, conscious of her immense wealth in coal, minerals, and fisheries, her delightful climate and geographical position, she bid for commercial supremacy. It is said of States, as of women, they are "fickle, coy and hard to please." For, changed and governed from England's Downing Street, "with all its red tape circumlocution," "Tile Barncal," incapacity, and "how-not-to-do-it"ability that attached to that venerable institution, its people were sorely perplexed.

During the discussion which the nature and inefficiency of the Government evoked several modes of relief from these embarrassments were warmly espoused, among them none more prominent than annexation to the United States. It was urged with much force that the great want of the country, immigration and responsible government, would find their fulfillment in such an alliance. All that seemed wanted was the "hour and the man." The man was considered present in Leonard McClure, editor of a local, and afterward on the editorial staff of the San Francisco Times. He was a man of rare ability, a terse writer, and with force of logic labored assiduously to promote annexation. But the "hour" was "non est." For while it was quite popular and freely discussed upon the forum and street, influential classes declined to commit themselves to the scheme, the primary step necessary before presentation to the respective Governments. Among the opposition to annexation, naturally, were the official class. These gentry being in no way responsible to the people, an element ever of influence, and believing that by such an alliance they would find their "occupation gone," gave it no quarter. Added to these was another possessed of the prestige and power that wealth confers—very conservative, timid, cautious, self-satisfied, anddreading innovations of popular rule, but especially republicanism. Amid these two classes, and sprinkled among the rank and file, was found a sentiment extremely patriotic, with those who saw nothing worth living for outside of the purview of the "tight little island."

There seems a destiny in the propriety of territory changing dominion. God seems to have given this beautiful earth, with its lands, to be utilized and a source of blessing, not to be locked by the promptings of avarice nor the clog of incapacity; that it should be occupied by those who, either by the accident of locality or superior ability, can make it the most efficient in development. There should be, and usually is, regard for acquired rights, save in the case of Africans, Indians, or other weak peoples, when cupidity and power hold sweet converse. Nor should we slightly estimate the feeling of loyalty to the land of birth and the hearths of our fathers, the impulse that nerves the arm to strike, and the soul to dare; that brings to our country's altar all that we have of life to repel the invader of our homes or the usurper of our liberties. That has given to the world a Washington, a Toussant, a Bozzaris—a loyalty that will ever stand with cloven helmet and crimson battle-ax in the van of civilization and progress. But, like other ennobling sentiments, it can be perverted, allowing it to permeate every view of government,finding its ultimatum in the conclusion that, if government is despotic or inefficient, it is to be endured and not removed. Such patriots are impressed with the conviction that the people were made for governments, and not governments for the people. A celebrated poet has said—

"Our country's claim is fealty,I grant you so; but thenBefore man made us citizensGreat Nature made us men."

Men with essential wonts and laudable aspirations, the attainment of which can be accelerated by the fostering love and enlightened zeal of a progressive government.

In 1859 at Esquimault, the naval station for British Columbia, I had a pleasant meeting with Lady Franklin, widow of Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, who sailed in 1845 and was supposed to have perished in 1847. With a woman's devotion, after many years of absence, she was still in quest, hoping, from ship officer or seaman of her Majesty's service, some ray of light would yet penetrate the gloom which surrounded his "taking off" in that terra incognito of the North pole, whose attraction for the adventurer in search of scientific and geographical data in the mental world is akin to its magnetic attraction in the physical. To her no tidingscame, but still lingered "hope, the balm and life-blood of the soul."

In 1868 the union of British Columbia with the Dominion of Canada was the political issue, absorbing all others. But the allurements of its grandeur and the magnitude of promised results were insufficient to allay opposition, ever encountered on proposal to change a constitutional polity by those at the time enjoying official honors or those who benefit through contracts or trade, and are emphatic in their protest; these, however, constitute an element that is unwittingly the safety valve of constitutional government. Wherever the people rule the public welfare is ever endangered whenever radical changes are to be introduced, unaccompanied with a vigorous opposition. A healthy opposition is the winnowing fan that separates the politician's chaff from the patriot's wheat, presenting the most desirable of the substantial element needed. At the convention in 1868 at Fort Yale, called by A. Decosmos, editor of The British Colonist, and others, for the purpose of getting an expression of the people of British Columbia regarding union with the Dominion of Canada (and of which the writer was a delegate), the reduction of liabilities, the lessening of taxation, increase of revenue, restriction of expenditure, and the enlargement of the people's liberties were the goal, all of which have been attained since entrance to the Dominion, which has become a brightjewel in his Majesty's Crown, reflecting a civilization, liberal and progressive, of a loyal, happy people.

The "British American Act," which created the Dominion of Canada, differs from the Constitution of the United States in important particulars. It grants to the Dominional, as well as the provincial Legislatures the "want of confidence principle," by which an objectionable ministry can be immediately removed; at the same time centralizing the national authority as a guard against the heresy of "State rights" superiority. Among the terms stipulated, the Dominion was to assume the colonial debt of British Columbia, amounting to over two million dollars; the building of a road from the Atlantic to the Pacific within a stipulated time. The alliance, however, contained more advantage than the ephemeral assistance of making a road or the assumption of a debt, for with confederation came the abolition of the "one-man system of government" and in its place a responsible one, with freedom of action for enterprise, legislation to encourage development, and assist budding industries; the permanent establishment of schools, and the disbursement of revenue in accordance with popular will.

It is ever and ever true that "right is of no sex, and truth of no color." The liberal ideas, ever struggling for utterance and ascendancy under every form of government,are not the exclusive property of any community or nation, but the heritage of mankind, and their victories are ever inspiring. For, as the traveler sometimes ascends the hill to determine his bearings, refresh his vision, and invigorate himself for greater endeavors, so we, by sometimes looking beyond the sphere of our own local activities, obtain higher views of the breadth and magnitude of the principles we cherish, and perceive that freedom's battle is identical wherever waged, whether her sons fight to abolish the relics of feudalism or to possess the ballot, the reflex influence of their example is mutually beneficial.

But of the Dominion of Canada, who shall write its "rise, decline, and fall?" Springing into existence in a day, with a population of 4,000,000 people—a number larger than that possessed by the United States when they commenced their great career—its promise is pregnant with benign probabilities. May it be the fruition of hope that the banner of the Dominion and the flag of our Republic, locked and interlocked, may go forward in generous rivalry to bless mankind.

The most rapid instrumentalities in the development of a new country are the finding and prospecting for mineral deposits. The discovery of large deposits of gold in the quartz and alluvial area of British Columbia in 1858 was the incipiency of the growth and prosperityit now enjoys. But although the search for the precious is alluring, the mining of the grosser metals and minerals, such as iron, lead, coal, and others, are much more reliable for substantial results.

The only mine of importance in British Columbia previous to 1867 was at Naniamo, where there was a large output of bituminous coal. In that year anthracite was discovered by Indians building fire on a broken vein that ran from Mt. Seymour, on Queen Charlotte Island, in the North Pacific. It was a high grade of coal, and on account of its density and burning without flame, was the most valuable for smelting and domestic purposes. A company had been formed at Victoria which had spent $60,000 prospecting for an enduring and paying vein, and thereafter prepared for development by advertising for tenders to build railroad and wharfs for shipping. Being a large shareholder in the company, I resigned as a director and bid. It was not the lowest, but I was awarded the contract. The Hudson Bay Co. steamship Otter, having been chartered January, 1869, with fifty men, comprising surveyor, carpenters, blacksmiths, and laborers, with timber, rails, provisions, and other necessaries for the work I embarked at Victoria. Queen Charlotte Island was at that time almost a "terra incognito," sparsely inhabited solely by scattered tribes of Indians on the coast lines, which were only occasionallyvisited by her Majesty's ships for discovery and capture of small craft engaged in the whisky trade.

Passing through the Straits of Georgia, stopping at Fort Simpson, and then to Queen Charlotte Island, entering the mouth of Skidegate River, a few miles up, we reached the company's quarters, consisting of several wooden buildings for residence, stores, shops, etc. At the mouth and along the river were several Indian settlements, comprising huts, the sides of which were of rough riven planks, with roof of leaves of a tough, fibrous nature. At the crest was an opening for the escape of smoke from fires built on the ground in the center of the enclosure. As the ship passed slowly up the river we were hailed by the shouting of the Indians, who ran to the river side, got into their canoes and followed in great numbers until we anchored. They then swarmed around and over the ship, saluting the ship's company as "King George's men," for such the English are known and called by them. They were peaceful and docile, lending ready hands to our landing and afterward to the cargo. I was surprised, while standing on the ship, to hear my name called by an Indian in a canoe at the side, coupled with encomiums of the native variety, quite flattering. It proved to be one who had been a domestic in my family at Victoria. He gave me kind welcome, not to be ignored, remembering thatI was in "the enemy's country," so to speak. Besides, such a reception was so much the more desirable, as I was dependent upon native labor for excavating and transportation of heavy material along the line of the road. While their work was not despatched with celerity of trained labor, still, as is general with labor, they earned all they got. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." I found many apt, some stupid; honesty and dishonesty in usual quantities, with craft peculiar to savage life.

Their mode of stealing by stages was peculiar. The thing coveted was first hid nearby; if no inquiry was made for a period deemed sufficiently long the change of ownership became complete and its removal to their own hut followed, to be disposed of when opportunity offered. If you had a particle of evidence and made a positive accusation, with the threat of "King George's man-of-war," it was likely to be forthcoming by being placed secretly nearby its proper place. But through it we see the oneness of human frailty, whether in the watered stock of the corporation or that of its humble servitor the milkman, there is kinship. To get something for nothing is the "ignis fatuus" ever in the lead. My experience during a year's stay on the island, and constant intercourse with the natives, impressed me more and more with the conviction that we are all mainly the creaturesof environments; yet through all the strata and fiber of human nature there is a chord that beats responsive to kindness—a "language that the dumb can speak, and that the deaf can understand."

The English mode of dealing with semi-civilized dependents is vastly different from ours. While vigorously administering the law for proper government, protection of life, and suppression of debauchery by unscrupulous traders, they inspired respect for the laws and the love of their patrons. Uprisings and massacres among Indians in her Majesty's dominions are seldom, if ever, to be chronicled. Many of our Indian wars will remain a blot on the page of impartial history, superinduced, as they were, by wanton murder or the covet of lands held by them by sacred treaties, which should have been as sacredly inviolate. Followed by decimation of tribes by toleration of the whisky trade and the conveyance of loathsome disease. The climate of the island was much more pleasant than expected. The warm ocean currents on the Pacific temper the atmosphere, rendering it more genial than the same degree of latitude on the Atlantic. A few inches of snow, a thin coat of ice on the river, were the usual attendants of winter. But more frequently our camp was overhung by heavy clouds, broken by Mt. Seymour, precipitating much rain.

HON. HENRY P. CHEATHAM,HON. HENRY P. CHEATHAM,

Late Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. Born in North Carolina Forty Odd Years Ago—Educated in Public Schools and "Shaw University"—Register of Deeds for his County—Elected to the Fifty-first and Fifty-second Congress—Able and Progressive.

After being domiciled we proceeded with the resident superintendent to view the company's property, comprising several thousand acres. Rising in altitude, and on different levels, as we approached Mt. Seymour, croppings of coal were quite frequent, the broken and scattered veins evidencing volcanic disturbance. The vein most promising was several hundred feet above the level of the sea, and our intended wharf survey was made, which showed heavy cuttings and blasting to obtain grade for the road. The work was pushed with all the vigor the isolated locality and climatic conditions allowed. Rain almost incessant was a great impediment, as well as were the occasional strikes of the Indian labor, which was never for more wages, but for more time. The coal from the croppings which had been at first obtained for testing, had been carried by them in bags, giving them in the "coin of the realm" so many pieces of tobacco for each bag delivered on the ship. There was plenty of time lying around on those trips, and they took it. On the advent of the new era they complained that "King George men" took all the time and gave them none, so they frequently quit to go in quest. The nativity of my skilled labor was a piece of national patchwork—a composite of the canny Scotch, the persistent and witty Irish, the conservative but indomitable English, the effervescent French, the phlegmatic German, and the irascible Italian. I found this variety beneficial, for the usual national and race biaswas sufficiently in evidence to preclude a combination to retard the work. I had three Americans, that were neither white nor colored; they were born black; one of them—Tambry, the cook—will ever have my grateful remembrance for his fatherly kindness and attention during an illness.

The conditions there were such that threw many of my men off their feet. Women and liquor had much the "right of way." I was more than ever impressed with the belief that there was nothing so conclusive to a worthy manhood as self-restraint, both morally and physically, and the more vicious and unrestraining the environment the greater the achievement. Miners had been at work placing many tons of coal at the mouth of the mine during the making of the road, the grade of which was of two elevations, one from the mine a third of the distance, terminating at a chute, from which the coal fell to cars on the lower level, and from thence to the wharf. After the completion of the road and its acceptance by the superintendent and the storage of a cargo of coal on the wharf, the steamer Otter arrived, was loaded, and despatched to San Francisco, being the first cargo of anthracite coal ever unearthed on the Pacific seaboard. The superintendent, having notified the directors at Victoria of his intention to return, they had appointed me to assume the office. I was so engaged, preparing for the next shipment on the steamer.

My sojourn on the island was not without its vicissitudes and dangers, and one of the latter I shall ever remember—one mingled, as it was, with antics of Neptune, that capricious god of the ocean, and resignation to what seemed to promise my end with all sublime things. The stock of oil brought for lubricating cars and machinery having been exhausted, I started a beautiful morning in a canoe with three Indians for their settlement at the mouth of Skidegate River for a temporary supply. After a few hours' paddling, gliding down the river serenely, the wind suddenly arose, increasing in force as we approached the mouth in the gulf. The high walls of the river sides afforded no opportunity to land. The storm continued to increase in violence, bringing billows of rough sea from the ocean, our canoe dancing like a feather, one moment on a high crest by its skyward leap, and in the next to an abyss deep, with walls of sea on either side, shutting out a view of the horizon, while I, breathless with anxious hope, waited for the succeeding wave to again lift the frail bark. The better to preservethe equilibrium of the canoe—a conveyance treacherous at the best—wrapped in a blanket in the bottom of the canoe I laid, looking into the faces of the Indians, contorted by fright, and listened to their peculiar and mournful death wail, "while the gale whistled aloft his tempest tune."

I afterward learned that they had a superstition based upon the loss of many of their tribe under like conditions, that escape was impossible. The alarm and distrust in men, aquatic from birth, in their own waters was to me appalling. I seemed to have "looked death in the face"—and what a rush of recollections that had been long forgotten, of actions good and bad, the latter seeming the most, hurried, serried, but distinct through my excited brain; then a thought, bringing a calm content, that "To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late;" and with a fervent resignation of myself to God and to what I believed to be inevitable; then a lull in the wind, and, after many attempts, we were able to cross the mouth of the river to the other side—the place of destination.

In 1869 I left Queen Charlotte Island and returned to Victoria; settled my business preparatory to joining my family, then at Oberlin, Ohio. It was not without a measure of regret that I anticipated my departure. There I had lived more than a decade; where the geniality of the climate was excelled only by the graciousness of the people; there unreservedly the fraternalgrasp of brotherhood; there I had received social and political recognition; there my domestic ties had been intensified by the birth of my children, a warp and woof of consciousness that time cannot obliterate. Then regret modified, as love of home and country asserted itself.

"Breathes there a man with soul so deadWho never to himself hath said:'This is my native land'—Whose heart has not within him burnedAs homeward footsteps he has turnedFrom wandering on a foreign strand?"

En route my feelings were peculiar. A decade had passed, fraught with momentous results in the history of the nation. I had left California disfranchised and my oath denied in a "court of justice" (?); left my country to all appearances enveloped in a moral gloom so dense as to shut out the light of promise for a better civil and political status. The star of hope glimmered but feebly above the horizon of contumely and oppression, prophetic of the destruction of slavery and the enfranchisement of the freedman. I was returning, and on touch of my country's soil to have a new baptism through the all-pervading genius of universal liberty. I had left politically ignoble; I was returning panoplied with the nobility of an American citizen. Hitherto regarded as a pariah, I had neither rejoiced at its achievement nor sorrowedfor its adversity; now every patriotic pulse beat quicker and heart throb warmer, on realization that my country gave constitutional guarantee for the common enjoyment of political and civil liberty, equality before the law—inspiring a dignity of manhood, of self-reliance and opportunity for elevation hitherto unknown.

Then doubt, alternating, would present the immense problems awaiting popular solution. Born in the seething cauldron of civil war, they had been met in the arena of fervid Congressional debate and political conflict. The amendments to the Constitution had been passed, but was their inscription a record of the crystallization of public sentiment? Subsequent events have fully shown that only to the magnanimity and justice of the American people and the fruition of time can they be commended. Not to believe that these problems will be rightfully solved is to doubt not only the efficacy of the basic principles of our Government, but the divinity of truth and justice. To these rounds of hope's ladder, while eager in obtaining wisdom, the Negro should cling with tenacity, with faith "a higher faculty than reason" unconquerable.

Having resolved to locate in some part of the South for the purpose of practicing law, I had while in Victoria read the English Common Law, the basis of our country's jurisprudence, under Mr. Ring, an English barrister. Soon after my arrivalin Oberlin, Ohio, where my family, four years before, had preceded me, I entered the law department of an Oberlin business college, and after graduation proceeded South, the first time since emancipation. In an early chapter I described my first contact with and impressions of slavery, when a lad; then the hopelessness of abject servitude and consciousness of unrequited toil had its impress on the brow of the laborer. Now cheerfulness, a spirit of industry, enterprise, and fraternal feeling replaced the stagnant humdrum of slavery. Nor was progress observable only among the freedmen. Many evidences of kindness and sympathy were shown and expressed by former owners for the moral and mental advancement of their former bondsmen, which, to a great degree, unfortunately, was counterbalanced by violence and persecution.

My brother, Jonathan C. Gibbs, was then Secretary of State of Florida, with Governor Hart as executive. He had had the benefit of a collegiate education, having graduated at Dartmouth, New Haven, and had for some years filled the pulpit as a Presbyterian minister. The stress of reconstruction and obvious necessity for ability in secular matters induced him to enter official life. Naturally indomitable, he more than fulfilled the expectations of his friends and supporters by rare ability as a thinker and speaker, with unflinching fidelity to his party principles. I foundhim at Tallahassee, the capital, in a well-appointed residence, but his sleeping place in the attic contracted, and, as I perceived, considerable of an arsenal. He said that for better vantage it had been his resting place for several months, as his life had been threatened by the "Ku Klux," that band of midnight assassins whose deeds of blood and carnage darken so many pages of our national history, and was the constant terror of white and black adherents to the national Government's policy of enfranchisement. He was hopeful of better conditions in Florida, and introduced me to Governor Hart. Both urged me to locate in the State, promising me their support. I highly appreciated the affection of the one and the proffered friendship of the other. But the feeling paramount was that my brother had "won his spurs" by assiduity and fidelity through the scathing and fiery ordeal of those troublesome times; that it would ill become me to profit or serenely rest beneath the laurels he had won. It was the last interview or sight of my brother. Subsequently after a three hours' speech, he went to his office and suddenly died of apoplexy.

I continued my tour of observation, and, having been appointed a delegate from Ohio to a national convention to be held in Charleston, South Carolina, I attended. It was the first assembly of the kind at which I had been present since emancipation. I had hitherto met many conventionsof colored men having for their object the amelioration of oppressive conditions. This gathering was unlike any similar meeting. The deliberations of the convention presented a combination of a strong intellectual grasp of present needs and their solution, with much uninformed groping and strife for prominence, features of procedure I have observed not confined to Negro assemblies.

The majority were unlettered, but earnest in their mental toiling for protection to life and equality before the law. Hitherto the purpose had been to make earnest appeals to the law-making power for such legislation as would abolish slavery and award equal justice—the first supported by the national conscience, but mainly as a military necessity, was a "fait accompli;" the other had been legislatively awarded, but for its realization much more was necessary than its simple identification on the statute books of a nation, when public sentiment is law. More than a third of a century has now passed, enabling a view more dispassionate and accurate of the conditions surrounding the freedmen directly after emancipation and the instrumentalities designed for fitting him for citizenship.

It is not surprising, neither is he blameworthy, if in the incipiency of joy for freedom bestowed he could not properly estimate the factors necessary to form an homogenous citizenship. The ways for twocenturies had been divergent paths. The dominant claiming and exercising, as an heirloom, every civil and political right; the subordinate, with knowledge the most meager of their application or limits, by compulsion was made to concede the claim. Neither is it singular that participation in the exercise of these rights by the freedman should have created a determined opposition in a majority of the former, who claimed their fitness to rule as the embodiment of the wealth and intelligence (which are generally the ruling factors world-wide), and would have at an early date derived a just "power from the consent of the governed," did not history record the unnecessary and inhuman means resorted to to extort it, the obliquity of which can be erased only by according him the rights of an American citizen. Mutual hostility, opposition on the one hand to the assumption and exercise of these rights, and consequent distrust by the freedman, often fostered by unscrupulous leaders, have been alike detrimental to both classes, but especially so to the Negro, for his constant need in the Southland is the cordial friendship and helping hand of "his brother in white." He deserves it for his century of unrequited labor in peace and in war for fidelity to the tender ties committed to his care. Anti-revolutionist in his nature, he will continue to merit it and possibly save the industrial life in the South in the coming conflict of capital and labor.

That, as a class, they are in antagonism to the prevailing political sentiment is the legitimate result of the manner of their emancipation and a commendable gratitude and kinship for the party through which they obtained their freedom. But Gibbon, in his "Decline and Fall of Rome," has said that "gratitude is expensive," and so the Negro has found it, and is beginning to echo the sentiment and would gladly hail conditions and opportunity where he could, after thirty-five years of blood and fidelity, be less partisan and more fraternal politically, conscious his united affiliation with his early alliance, and consequent ostracism of the opposition has given him a "hard road to travel." Commendable as has been his devotion, he finds commendation a limited currency and not negotiable for the protection and benefits that should accompany the paladium of citizenship. While his treatment by the Democratic party has made a continuous political relation compulsory, it is unfortunate; for the political affinity of no other class of American citizens is judged by the accident of birth. It is detrimental to the voter whose proclivity is thereby determined. Wherever the Negro vote, in the estimation of any party, is an uncertain quantity, its value as a factor will have increased, consolidated, and in numbers controlling, it has been considered a menace and vigorously eliminated.

This view has to an extent an auxiliary in certain Republican circles, where it is avowed that the party could get in the South a large accession of hitherto Democratic voters, giving it a commanding influence, but for its colored contingent, which is averred to be repellant. There may be difference of opinion as to the merit of such conclusions and the fitness of their rehearsal "to the marines;" but none as to the measure of welcome of those that hold them. However, given that they are correct. Self-respect and a desire to help the old party can go hand in hand, and when possible in a manly way, room should be made for such anticipated accession.

There is another phase of present conditions that deserves, and I have no doubt has claimed, attention. It is the emphatic trend of the national leaders of the party to conciliate the hitherto discordant elements in the South in the interest of national harmony, an object lesson of which was presented by the late President on his Southern tour. But few years have elapsed since no man seeking a renomination on the Republican ticket would have put on and worn a Confederate badge. This President McKinley did, receiving the indiscriminate applause and the concurrence of his own party. Such an act, which is not only allowable, but commendable, would formerly have been political suicide. This being a movement in the house of his political alliance,it is up to the Negro to consider which is his best interest, should the olive branch of political friendship be extended by those from whom he receives his chief support. Under like conditions, his white brother would have no hesitancy.

There is yet another phase which indicates the Negro in jeopardy on industrial lines. A few years hence the South will have ceased to be chiefly agricultural. Mills for cotton, iron, and other factories will have dotted hilltop and valley, and with them will come the Northern operative with his exclusive "unions" and trade prejudice, shutting the doors of mills and foundries against him. To meet this scramble for favor from the wealth and intelligence of the Southland—the ruling factors—he should avail himself of every appliance for fostering harmony and co-operation along all the lines of contact. In slavery and in his subsequent journey in freedom he has suffered much. But what nation or people have escaped that ordeal who have made mark in the world's history? There is now prospective unfriendly legislation in several Southern States; also the lowest of the whites, as they deem occasion may require, go, often undisturbed, on shooting and lynching expeditions.

The problem that continues to force itself for solution is, How the innocent are to receive immunity from these outrages or a fair trial, when accused of crime.These being under the purview of State sovereignty, the Federal arm is not only powerless, but there exists no Northern sentiment favoring drastic means for their correction. Hence it is evident that relief can only come from those who fashion the sentiment that crystallizes into law. But with the bitter is mingled the sweet; much of his advancement along educational and material lines is due to the liberality of the white people of the South, who, it has been computed, have contributed one hundred millions of dollars since emancipation by taxes and donations for his education, and there are many evidences that the best thought of the South is in line with Negro employment and his educational advancement in the belief that the more general the intelligence the greater the State's progress, morally and materially. This conviction was emphatically expressed by an overwhelming negative vote in the Arkansas Legislature recently, where a measure was introduced to abandon him to his own taxable resources for education. The ratio of his moral and material product will be the measure of his gratitude for this great boon. For, after all, many of "our great dangers are not from without."

EDWARD E. COOPER.EDWARD E. COOPER.

Editor and Publisher of "Colored American," Washington, D. C.Founder of "Colored World" and "Indianapolis Freeman" Conspicuous as a Leader and Enterprising as a Journalist.

Editor and Publisher of "Colored American," Washington, D. C.

Founder of "Colored World" and "Indianapolis Freeman" Conspicuous as a Leader and Enterprising as a Journalist.

General ——, a leading Democrat of this State, and an unmistakable friend of the negro, referring to the above evidence of good feeling, said he did not see why I, and other reputed leaders, in view of such evidences of friendship, did not induce our people to be fraternal politically. I replied that the effort had once been made, but that the Democratic party, intrenched as it was in large majorities in the South, "by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," its leaders say they "do not need, neither do they solicit, the colored vote; but if they choose, they may so vote." He said that certainly had a ringing sound of independence and was uninviting as an announcement—an independence, however, that will not forever outlive the vagaries of sound, for it is not unlikely that he will not only vote the ticket, but be earnestly solicited to do so. "For it will happen, during the whirligig of time and action, in my party as well as others, that there will be a change of policies, new issues, local dissatisfaction, friction, contemplated antagonism and the political arithmetic sounded. But I cannot but believe that the clannishness of the Negro has been the boomerang that has knocked him out of much sympathy, being impractical as a political factor and out of harmony with the material policies of the Southern people."

I replied I had thought the highest ideal of patriotism was adherence to measures materially as well as politically that were for the benefit of the whole people.

He said: "I know your party preach that they have a monopoly of wisdom; but the fact is the wisest statesmen of the world are divided in opinion as to the benefitsclaimed for the leading policies of your party. But how do they benefit you, as a dependent class? Your immediate need is employment and good educational facilities. You should be less sentimental and more practical. You may honestly believe in a protective tariff, having for its object the protection of the American working-man, but does it help you when you know that the doors of mills, foundries, and manufactories are shut against you? As to the currency, you are at a disadvantage when you attempt to antagonize the financial views of your employers.

"It reminds me of an incident," he continued, "in my native town in Virginia, not long after reconstruction. There had been a drought and short crop, succeeded by a pretty hard winter. My father, whose politics, you may well judge, I being 'a chip of the old block,' without soliciting money or favor, threw open his cellar, wherein was stowed many bushels of sweet potatoes; invited all the destitute to come. It is needless to say they came. In the spring Tobey, the Negro minister of the Baptist Church—a man illiterate, but with much native sense—after morning service, said: 'Brethren, there's gwine to be a 'lection here next week, and I wants you all to vote in de light dat God has gin you to see de light, but I spects to vote wid de taters.' Now, this may seem ludicrous, but Tobey, in that act, was a fit representative of the white man in politics—for everyclass of American citizens except the Negro divide their vote and put it where to them personally it will do the most good."

"Much," I replied, "that you have said is undoubtedly true. But can you wonder at the Negro's cohesion? Is it not a fact that his is the only class of citizens that your party deny equal participation in the franchise, and unjustly discriminate against in the application of the laws? Where better could a change of conduct which you would admire and he so happily embrace, be inaugurated than within your own political household; where could nobility of character be more grandly displayed than by the abolition of these vicious hindrances to the uplifting of the weak and lowly?"

"Be that as it may," he replied, "your race is not in a condition to make friends by opposing the prevailing local policies of their environments."

I have narrated this interview for the reason that it is a fitting type of the views of friends of the Negro of the South who somehow fail to see the difficulty in his fraternizing with them in the midst of so much political persecution and bodily outrage. I referred in the above interview to an effort of colored leaders to assimilate with Southern politics.

In 1876 (twenty-five years ago) I was President of a National Convention held at Nashville, Tenn, and of which H. V. Redfield, an able correspondent of the "Cincinnati Commercial," made the following unduly flattering mention: "Mifflin W. Gibbs, of Arkansas, was selected as President. It may be interesting to know that Gibbs is strongly in favor of Bristoe, now an aspirant for the Presidency. He will likely be a delegate from Arkansas to the National Republican Convention at Cincinnati. He is a lawyer, one of the foremost of his race in Arkansas. He is rather slender and a genteel-looking man, with something in his features that denotes superiority" ("Though poor in thanks," Redfield, yet I thank thee.) "His speech upon taking the chair, was another event. It was the third good speech of the day and calculated to leave the believers of internal inferiority in something of a muddle.

"He made a manly plea for equal rights for his race. All they wanted was an equal chance in the battle of life. They did not desire to hinder any man for exercising his political rights as he saw fit, and all they claimed was liberty of thought andaction for themselves. He was sorry there was occasion for a convention of black men to consider black men's status. The fact alone was evidence that the race had not been accorded right and justice. Of the treatment of his race in Arkansas he had little to complain of, but spoke bitterly of the murders at Vicksburg, Miss. He gave the Republican party, as administered at Washington, several blows under the chin. He complained of bad treatment of colored men by that party, notwithstanding all its professions. He made the bold declaration that all the whites of the South need do to get their votes was to promise equal and exact justice and stand to it. All they wanted was their rights as American citizens and would go into the party that would secure them. He said the question primarily demanding the attention of the convention were educational and political, and he hoped the proceedings would be so orderly as to convince the whites present that we were capable of self-control. His speech had a highly independent flavor and the particular independent passages were applauded by whites and blacks alike."

While the call for the convention was not distinctly political, that feature of the proceedings was the most pronounced. For at that early day, through an experience the most bitter, the lesson had been learned that politics was not the panacea, but that our affiliation with the Republicanparty was the main offence. Hence a disposition to fraternize with Southern politicians for race protection and opportunity had many adherents, and voiced by Governor Pinchback and other prominent leaders in the South, who, while preferring to maintain their fealty to the Republican party, were willing to sacrifice that allegiance if they could secure protection and improve conditions for the race. Had the leaders of Southern opinion met these overtures, even part of the way, much of the friction and turbulence of subsequent years would have been avoided. But that there will be a breaking up of the political solidarity of the South, not on sentimental but on material lines, at no distant day all signs promise, and be its status what it may, the Negro will benefit by commingling with the respective parties in political fellowship. Laying down the "old grudge" at the door of opportunity and entering, should the premises be habitable, he could "report progress and ask leave to sit again."

It has been alleged to the discredit of the Negro that he too soon forgets an injury. Nevertheless as a virtue it should redound to his credit. He is swift to forgive and, if necessary, apologize for the shortcomings of his adversary. But human nature seldom appreciates forgiveness, preceded as it is by censure, the subject of which usually repels, and another melancholy phase is often apparent, for thepricks of conscience for those we have wronged, we seek solace by hating. There are in both parties a fraction of saints, who, notwithstanding his immense contribution by unrequited labor to the wealth of the nation whilst a slave; his fidelity and bravery in every war of the Republic, have for him neither care nor regard; denounce him as an incapable and a bad legacy. He should, nevertheless, be patient, diligent, and hopeful, with appreciation for his friends and for his enemies a consciousness expressed in the Irishman's toast to the Englishman—

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