| Capital in Business. | Real Estate Exclusive of Incumbrance. | |||
| New York | $755,000 | $733,000 | ||
| Brooklyn | 79,200 | 276,000 | ||
| Williamsburg | 4,900 | 151,000 | ||
| ——— | ——— | |||
| $839,100 | $1,160,000 | |||
| The North Star—Vol. | ||||
The convention crowned its work by a more comprehensive plan of organization than those of twenty years before.
A national council was provided for to be “composed of two members from each state by elections to be held at a poll at which each colored inhabitant may vote who pays ten cents as a poll tax, and each state shall elect at such election delegates to state conventions twenty in number from each State at large.”
The detail of this plan shows that the methods of the Afro-American Council of 1895, is an almost exact copy of the National Council of 1853. The chairman of the committee which formulated this plan was Wm. Howard Day and other members were Charles H. Langston, George B. Vashon, William J. Wilson, William Whipper and Charles B. Ray, all of them men of more than ordinary intelligence, information and ability.
But those who saw only in emigration the solution of the evils with which they were beset, immediately called another convention to consider and decide upon the subject of emigration from the United States. According to the call, no one was to be admitted to the convention who would introduce the subject of emigration to any part of the Eastern Hemisphere, and opponents of emigration were also to be excluded. Among the signers to the call in and from the States of Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Canada and California were: Rev. Wm. Webb, Martin R. Delaney, Pittsburg, Pa., Dr. J. J. Gould Bias of Philadelphia, Franklin Turner of the same city, Rev. Augustus R. Green of Allegheny, Pa., James M. Whitfield, New York, William Lambert of Michigan, Henry Bibb, James Theodore Holly of Canada and Henry M. Collins of California.
Douglass in his paper “The North Star,” characterized the call as uncalled for, unwise and unfortunate and premature. As far too narrow and illiberal to meet with acceptance among the intelligent. “A convention to consider the subject of emigration when every delegate must declare himself in favor of it before hand as a condition of taking his seat, is like the handle of a jug, all on one side. We hope no colored man, will omit during the coming twelve months an opportunity which may offer to buy a piece of property, a house lot, a farm or anything else in the United States which looks to permanent residence here.”
James M. Whitfield of Buffalo, N. Y., the Negro poet of America, and one of the signers of the call, responded to the attacks in the same journal. Douglass made a reply and Whitfield responded again, and so on until several articles on each side were produced by these and other disputants. The articles were collected and published in pamphlet form by Rev. and Bishop James Theodore Holly of Port au Prince, Haiti, making a valuable contribution to literature, for I doubt if there is anywhere throughout the range of controversial literature anything to surpass it.
I am indebted to Bishop Holly for further information respecting this convention. In a private letter he says:
“The convention was accordingly held. The Rev. William Munroe was President, the Rt. Rev. [William] Paul Quinn, Vice President, Dr. Delaney, Chairman of the Business Committee and I was the Secretary.” * * *
“There were three parties in that Emigration Convention, ranged according to the foreign fields they preferred to emigrate too. Dr. Delaney headed the party that desired to go to the Niger Valley in Africa, Whitfield the party which preferred to go to Central America, and Holly the party which preferred to go to Hayti.”