The first three pages are serious. On the fourth page the fun begins, and continues till the death of Greeley. At the bottom of page 33 there are two sentences beginning with the words, “We were wholly serious,” which excuse the participants, including yourself, for being at Cincinnati at all. Then the humor starts afresh and becomes side-splitting at the place where McClure enters and tosses Schurz and Halstead and yourself to the ceiling successively.
Now the question arises, What will the readers of your paper, who get from it their first and only knowledge of the campaign of 1872—and these will probably be ninety per cent. of its readers—think of that campaign? They will think it was a very droll affair and quite unaccountable. They will know nothing about disfranchisement or Santo Domingo or nepotism or whisky frauds, or civil-service rapine or the real causes of the uprising of 1871–72.
The McClure episode, by the way, is even more unaccountable. I don’t understand it myself. It reads as though Colonel McClure was surveying the scene from Olympus as a disinterested spectator, with great scorn for the participants in the convention. In fact he was chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation, supporting Greeley or Davis or somebody. He was as deep in the mud as anybody else was in the mire.
Chapter V on Greeley is prime, but it is hardly true to say or imply that his martyrdom shortened the distance across the bloody chasm or that his coffin nearly filled it. Reconstruction, Ku Klux, and carpet-baggery lasted through Grant’s second term, except in so far as it was put down (in Texas and Arkansas) despite the Republican party. The South did not get any real relief until Hayes came in, and then only as the result of a bargain made before the vote of the Electoral Commission was taken.
To sum up: I think that you have dwelt too much on the humorous side of the Cincinnati Convention, and that you have omitted the only features that gave it a raison d’être, or have given such slight attention to them that the reader will not catch their significance.
IS THE NEGRO HAVING A FAIR CHANCE?
BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
IF I were asked the simple, direct question, “Does the negro in America have a fair chance?” it would be easy to answer simply, “No,” and then refer to instances with which every one is familiar to justify this reply. Such a statement would, however, be misleading to any one who was not intimately acquainted with the actual situation. For that reason I have chosen to make my answer not less candid and direct, I hope, but a little more circumstantial.
THE NEGRO TREATED BETTER IN AMERICA THAN ELSEWHERE
ALTHOUGH I have never visited either Africa or the West Indies to see for myself the condition of the people in these countries, I have had opportunities from time to time, outside of the knowledge I have gained from books, to get some insight into actual conditions there. But I do not intend to assert or even suggest that the condition of the American negro is satisfactory, nor that he has in all things a fair chance. Nevertheless, from all that I can learn I believe I am safe in saying that nowhere are there ten millions of black people who have greater opportunities or are making greater progress than the negroes in America.