Embassador to Mexico.
Governor of Arkansas—United States Senator—Honest and Fearless, with a Public and Private Life Beyond Reproach.
After nominations were made for the various State officers in convention, appointments were made and printed notices posted and read at church and schoolhouse neighborhoods, that there would be "speaking" at stated points.
The speakers, with teams and literature and other ammunition of political warfare known and "spiritually" relished by the faithful, would start at early morn from their respective headquarters on a tour of one or two hundred miles, filling ten or twenty appointments. Good judgment was necessary in the personal and peculiar fitness of the advocate. For he that could by historic illustration and gems of logic carry conviction in a cultured city would be "wasting his sweetness on the desert air" in the rural surroundings of the cabins of the lowly. I have heard a point most crudely stated, followed by an apposite illustrative anecdote, by a plantation orator silence the more profuse cultured and eloquent opponent.
As he was still at his lesson on the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, it was a study worthy the pencil of a Hogarth to watch the play of lineament of feature, while gleaning high ideals of citizenship and civil liberty amid the clash of debate of political opponents; cheerful acquiescence, cloudy doubt, hilarious belief, intricate perplexity, and want of comprehension by turns impressed the countenance. But trustful in the sheet anchor of liberty, they were worthy students, who strove to merit the great benignity. Canvassing was not without its humorous phases during the perilous times of reconstruction. The meetings, often in the woods adjoining church or schoolhouse, were generally at a late hour, the men having to care for their stock, get supper, and come often several miles; hence it was not unusual for proceedings to be at their height at midnight. I was at such a gathering in the lower part of the State, where Jack Agery, a noted plantation orator, was holding forth, denouncing the Democracy and rallying the faithful. He was a man of great natural ability and bristling with pithy anecdote. From a rude platform half a dozen candles flickered a weird and unsteady glare. Agery as a spellbinder was at his best, when a hushed whisper, growing into a general alarm, announced that members of the Ku Klux, an organization noted for the assassination of Republicans, were coming. Agery, a born leader, in commanding tones, told the meeting to be seated and do as he bid them. The Ku Klux, disguised and pistol belted, very soon appeared, but not before Agery had given out, and they were singing with fervor that good old hymn "Amazing Grace, How Sweet It Sounds to Save a Wretch Like Me." The visitors stood till the verse was ended, when Agery, self-controlled, called on Brother Primus to next lead in prayer.
Brother P. was soon hammering the bench and calling on the Lord to come on His "white horse, and to come this very minute." "Oh," said the chief of the night riders, "this is only a nigger prayer meeting. Come, let us go." Scouts were sent out and kept out to see that "distance lent enchantment to the view," and the political feature of the meeting was resumed.
The Negro is not without many of the prominent characteristics of the successful politician. He is aggressive, conservative, and astute, as occasion demands. Of the latter trait Hon. John Allen, ex-member of Congress from Mississippi, and said to have been the prince of story tellers, at his own expense gives this amusing incident. It was on the occasion of the Carmack-Patterson contested election case. In beginning his speech he called attention to Mr. Patterson's remarks. "Did any of you," he said, "ever hear anyone pronounce a more beautiful eulogy on himself than that just pronounced by Josiah Patterson? In listening to it I was reminded of what my friend Jake Cummings once said about me. It was in the great campaign of 1884. The Cleveland-Hendricks-Allen Club at Tupelo had a meeting, and Mr. Taylor and Mr. Anderson spoke to the club that night. As I chanced to be at home from my campaigning, I attended the club meeting. After the regular speakers I was called for and submitted some remarks about myself and my campaign. After I had spoken the crowd called for Jake Cummings, a long, black, slick old Negro carpenter, who lives in Tupelo. Jake's speech ran about this way: "Well, gentlemen, it's gettin' kinder late now. I don't know as it's necessary for me to say anything. You's heerd Mister Taylor and Mister Allen on the general politics of the day. They's dun told you what sort of man Blaine is, and what sort of a man Cleveland is. It don't look to me like no honest man ought to have trouble in picking out the fittinest man of them two. And then you's heerd Mister Allen on hisself, and he has ricommended hisself so much higher than any the rest of us kin ricommend him it ain't worth while for me to say nuthin' about him.""