One of the first lessons a new appointee should learn, and I might say the most important one, is entire and complete subordination, for without this he cannot succeed. He must make up his mind to lay aside what he calls his manly instincts and personal independence, and resolve to submissively obey all orders of his superiors without a murmur, even though they are not stated exactly in accordance with the rules of syntax, laid down by Lindley Murray. He will also find that he must so act as to win the respect and confidence of his superiors in office, and to so live as to hold them, and to do this, he must be a gentleman away from the office as well as in it, for if he keeps bad company, the report of it will eventually reach his superiors, and thereby affect his standing materially. A new clerk will not be here very long before he will find that in addition to these other necessary requirements, that “Influence” counts a good deal, and without it one can make slow headway singlehanded and alone, trusting to his own ability. To obtain social standing and influence, one must associate with the better class of people, and to do that he must be of clean character,if he expects to obtainentretherein. The various Departments of the government here are run by old and experienced clerks, who have spent a large part of their lives in this service, and cannot well be displaced by the new ones, however intelligent they may be. The fitness of these old clerks is proved by long, efficient and faithful service. They also very clearly understand the value of influence, and know just when, where and how to bring it to bear. They are regular diplomats.
But aside from other considerations, these men have devoted their lives to the service, grown old in it, and are content, and I might say, fitted to this kind of work to the exclusion of all other work. They cannot go out into the world and make a decent living on their own wits, and therefore should be let alone, because the government has received the benefit of their best days of service, and should not cast them out on account of old age, at least, to “go over the hill to the poor house.”
THE END.
Probably the most unique work of its kind will be Mr. H. C. Bruce’s book, “The New Man.” It is ostensibly the author’s autobiography, but he has made more of it than a simple narrative by interweaving with his own experience much of the history of the ante-bellum days and very many vivid descriptions of the habits and customs of the Old South.
One of the most conspicuous features of this book is the entire absence of the passion usually displayed when former slaves refer to their past bondage. Yet without this very dispassionateness no history can be authentic. We may be fascinated by the elegant style of an historian, but the fascination changes to doubt in the presence of his evident bias and his expressed prejudice.
Mr. Bruce felt his bondage—all slaves felt it—but he has been fair enough, and I may add courageous enough, to say that within his experience and observation, savagery and brutality in the treatment of slaves were the exception and not the rule. The great wrong was in the enslavementper seof a fellow-man. Why, he argues, would a man abuse and over-work and starve his slave, a valuable piece of property, any more than he would poorly feed or maltreat his horse or his ox? His own self-interest would require good treatment in order to secure good results from the labor of his slaves. There were harsh, even brutal masters, but Mr. Bruce claims that these were usually found among a class of people who were low bred, and he asserts that the cruelties of slavery could be as easily traced to this class of white men, as we can trace to a similar class to-day the proscriptions, and persecutions and hardships that are suffered by the better element of Colored people.
If left to themselves, Mr. Bruce believes, there would be the best of feeling between the old aristocrat and his former slave, and the world would not be periodically shocked by the intelligence of lynching bees and burnings.
To me, Mr. Bruce’s accounts of the old highway system, with the then prevailing modes of travel and trade, are as instructive as they are interesting. But this is only one of the many valuable contributions to history, with which the book abounds.
Mr. Bruce’s narration of his experiences begins with his childhood, when he was encouraged by his master to eat and play on his Virginia farm, and carries the reader through the intervening years, until when at Brunswick, practically in charge of his master’s business, the war came and changed a nominal freedom into an actual freedom.
Another prominent feature of the book, is Mr. Bruce’s contention that the two classes of people in the South should not divide along the line of race or color, and in this connection he furnishes argument to support his condemnation of the common blooded blacks and whites alike, whose bad conduct he asserts has brought shame and disgrace, and misery upon the better classes of white and Colored people of the South.
All the way through the book sets the reader to thinking and whoever may peruse its pages will be amply repaid for his time, and the reader may rest assured that he will not find it a task to read what Mr. Bruce has written. So far from this he will find that, after reading the first page, he will have a desire to read the second page, and his interest will increase to the end of the book.
J. H. N. Waring, M. D.,
Washington, D. C.Supervisor Public Schools.
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Washington, D. C.,April 19th, 1895.
I have read in manuscript, Mr. H. C. Bruce’s book, “The New Man,” and have been greatly interested in its perusal. It gives us a very novel, and I am sure atruthful glimpse of the life of the slave. I think it the only book that fairly represents the relations of the master and slave. Other books have been written on this topic, but they have been written for the purpose of inflaming prejudice, and the horrors of slave life appear to be greatly exaggerated. Mr. Bruce, however, has a simple story to tell and does it well.
This book may be read with profit by the Colored race for the example it affords. The author was a slave until his twenty-ninth year, but by diligence and hard work, in the face of all opposition, he has succeeded in educating himself and gaining positions of honor and trust.
I commend this book to any one who desires to get a true idea of the old-time slave in the cotton fields of the South.
Thos. Featherstonhaugh.Medical Referee, Bureau of Pensions.
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We have been permitted to examine the manuscript of a projected book, the subject and the style of which will, we think, prove extremely interesting to the general public. It is the work of a Colored man, a resident of this city, and an employe of the Pension Office—Henry C. Bruce, a brother of Hon. B. K. Bruce, once United States Senator from Mississippi, and latterly Recorder of Deeds from the District of Columbia. It is the unpretentious story, simply and directly told, of a Colored man twenty-nine years a slave. The earlier chapters contain the record of his life during ante-bellum days, his experiences under slavery as a child, youth, and a grown man, the joys, the sorrows, the privations, the pleasures, and the vicissitudes which came to him in turn. The closing chapters tell of the conditions with which emancipation confronted him, what helps and hindrances he encountered in his new career, through what changing fortune he made his way to comfort and independence.
We doubt whether there is to be found in literature anything of its kind at once as authentic and as entertaining. The writer is not a professional Colored man. He is not conspicuous in protest against the attitude of the white people toward the race. He does not claim to have been a bleeding martyr during his term of slavery. He does not picture the old southern proprietor class as monsters and tyrants—quite the contrary—or pretend that all the virtue, kindness, worth, and loyalty of that section was to be found in the Negroes. The fact is, that Mr. Bruce writes of the period during which he lived in bondage in Virginia, Mississippi, and Missouri, very much as his own master would have written—truthfully, fairly, philosophically. It is evident that he cherishes no resentful feeling toward those in whose service he spent the first half of his life. Indeed, one can see that he has for them the truest affection and regard. If there be one sentiment which, more than any other, runs through the whole narrative from beginning to end, it is the sentiment of pride in the old southern aristocracy, and contempt for every other type and variety of white man. He is loyal to his own people, in the highest and truest meaning of loyalty, but for the slave owners as he knew them, he has the sense of gratitude and justice strong within him.
The book is full of wisdom and kindness. Here and there are touches of shrewd observations which the Colored people will do well to ponder and reflect upon. And not the least valuable and creditable feature of Mr. Bruce’s work is to be found in the candid, generous, and fair comment he indulges as to the management of the Pension Office under Messrs. Black, Raum, and Lochren. It is refreshing, indeed, to find a Colored man writing so intelligently of slavery during his own term of bondage, and of race issues and politics, in which for thirty years past he has been an active, if a modest and unostentatious participant.—Washington Post, April 14, 1895.