Frederick Douglass

by Booker T. Washington

The course of events in the succeeding thirty years proved that Frederick Douglass was wholly right in his determination not to take up his residence in one of the Southern states for political purposes. Had he followed the advice of some of his friends, his career would have been considerably marred by the exigencies of party and sectional politics, and his character as a natural leader of his people would, in all probability, have shrunken to that of a state politician. He did the wise thing, however, in changing his residence from Rochester to Washington. This brought him in closer touch with his people, as well as near to the law-making forces of the nation.

After he became settled in his new home, he soon found his heart and hands full of occupations that tried his soul. He was fairly overwhelmed with all kinds of schemes and propositions that were carried to him, urging him to do this or that for the protection and elevation of the race. It required a mind of more than ordinary shrewdness to discriminate between the practical and impractical. Many of the Negroes seemed to think him capable of performing miracles in the way of undoing the effects of slavery. It required a stout spirit to listen unmoved to the wail that came from the hearts of his sadly distracted people. Those of us who are living forty years after the close of the war, can little appreciate to what an extent the glory of emancipation was shadowed by the miseries of a whole race suddenly set free with no preparation for freedom. When one studies the history of the years that followed emancipation, and learns of the many sins and errors of the time, and the retribution that they brought upon the bewildered people in whose name they were committed, it must seem strange that the Negro race could survive and make the progress it has made. Through all the confusion and clamor of wants, sorrows, sufferings and disappointments, Mr. Douglass kept his head, and was at all times philosophical, certain that the good accomplished was more important than the seeming failures; that the hindrances to progress were transitory, the forces of progress permanent. After he had settled in Washington, two things at once engaged his attention: the publication of another paper, The New National Era, and the Freedmen’s Bank.

There was apparently a pressing need for a national organ to advance the cause of the Negro, and it was believed that the name of Frederick Douglass at its head would surely bring it a wide circulation, as well as a commanding influence. He took hold of the project with characteristic vigor and invested a large amount of his savings in the venture. With the assistance of his two sons, both practical printers, the paper proved to be one of the greatest helps of the hour. Some of Mr. Douglass’s best utterances are to be found in the New Era. Its columns were open to the leading colored men and women of that time and it exerted a wide and salutary influence. However, it failed of support. The enterprise cost Mr. Douglass between nine and ten thousand dollars. He seems to have anticipated its financial misfortunes, but said of it afterward: “The journal was valuable, while it lasted, and the experiment was to me full of instruction which has to some extent been heeded, for I have kept well out of newspaper undertakings since, so I have no tears to shed.”

When Mr. Douglass went to Washington, he found established there the Freedmen’s Bank. It was chartered by Congress and was run and managed in connection with the Freedmen’s Bureau. “It was,” as Mr. Douglass says, “more than a bank. There was something missionary in its composition.” Its managers were men of character and religion, and were interested in everything that could point the way of true living to the ex-slave. To teach the important lesson of thrift was its main object.

For a time this bank flourished very well. Branches were established in various parts of the South. The poor freedmen in the bottom lands of Mississippi and other isolated places quickly learned the use and meaning of the institution; and eagerly and gratefully committed to its keeping their small earnings. Thousands of these depositors first came to know and realize their relationship to the government at Washington through it. The owners of United States bonds did not feel more secure than did these trusting new citizens of the republic.

The bank and its purposes appealed to Mr. Douglass. He felt it his duty to do anything in his power to help the benevolent enterprise. It was not long before he was elected one of its trustees. He accepted the post and, as an earnest of his interest and confidence in it, placed several thousand dollars in its keeping. He says: “It seemed fitting to cast in my lot with my brother freedmen and help build up an institution which represented the thrift and economy of my people to so striking an advantage, for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people by the whole country.”

At first he was not active in his new office. He seldom attended the board meetings. The men in charge were of so high a character and had brought the bank up to such rank that his faith in it was well-nigh absolute. He was surprised when soon notified that he had been elected president. Before assuming this post, in 1871, he asked for a statement of the bank’s affairs, not because he was suspicious, but that he might the more intelligently take hold of his new duties. He received assurances from the officers that everything was in excellent condition but he at once began a wholesale policy of retrenchment in the expenses of management. From the showing made by those in a position to know and to be believed, Mr. Douglass felt so confident that everything was as it appeared to be that he loaned the bank $10,000 of his own money, until it could realize on a part of its securities. Soon afterward several things connected with the bank’s management excited his distrust. The money loaned by him was not repaid so promptly as it should have been; some of the trustees had removed their own deposits and opened accounts with other banks; and the new president discovered that through dishonest agents, heavy losses were sustained in the South; that there was a discrepancy in the accounts amounting to about $40,000; that the “reserve” which the bank by its charter was obliged to maintain was entirely exhausted. All this Mr. Douglass learned after he had been president for only three months. Being convinced that things were rapidly going from bad to worse, he immediately reported the condition of the bank to the Finance Committee of the United States Senate. The trustees upon whose figures and reports Mr. Douglass relied for his action, now tried to retract their statements and did their utmost to stay the hand of the government, but the Senate committee accepted his representations and immediately proceeded to bring the bank to the end of its remarkable career.

Mr. Douglass did not take advantage of his private knowledge of its insolvency to remove his $2,000 on deposit, as some trustees had done. In this, as in other things, he acted with perfect openness and absolute honesty. Nevertheless the bank’s troubles brought to him no end of bitter criticism. The number of open accounts at the time of failure was over 60,000 and the total amount deposited during the period of its existence was about $57,000,000.

Bad management may truthfully be written on the face of this greatest single setback to the Negro’s progress. Viewed in the light of the condition of these people, striving by might and main to promote their own interests, the failure of the Freedmen’s Bank was little less than a crime. The mischief had all been done before Mr. Douglass took charge of the institution. As he says: “Not a dollar of its millions was loaned by me or with my approval. The fact is, and all investigation will show, that I was married to a corpse. When I became connected with the bank I had a tolerably fair name for honest dealing. I had expended in the publication of my paper in Rochester thousands of dollars annually and had often to depend upon my credit to bridge over immediate wants. But no man here or elsewhere can say that I ever wronged him out of one cent.”

This miserable failure distressed Mr. Douglass more than any other man in the country, because he saw how wide-spread would be the loss of confidence in him and in his people. The mere fact that his own conscience was clear and that his prompt action prevented further losses did not soften his disappointment. On the contrary, the subject continued to be a source of public bitterness and suspicion for many years, but he was large enough to grow out of and beyond any evil effects arising from it, so far as his own standing and reputation were concerned.