TOPIC XIII.
WHAT SHOULD BE THE NEGRO'S ATTITUDE IN POLITICS?
BY HON. GEORGE H. WHITE.
HON. GEORGE H. WHITE, LL. D.
Mr. White was born in a log cabin, located at the confluence of "Richland Branch" and "Slap Swamp" in Bladen County, North Carolina, near the line of Columbus County, remote from cities and towns. His maternal grandmother was half-Indian and his paternal grandmother was Irish, full-blood. His other admixture is facetiously described as "mostly Negro." His early boyhood was a struggle for bread and a very little butter, his schooling being necessarily neglected. He usually attended two or three months in the year. Later, by dint of toil, and saving a few dollars, he was able to secure training under Prof. D. P. Allen, President of the Whitten Normal School at Lumberton, N. C., and afterwards entered Howard University at Washington, graduating from the eclectic department in 1877. Believing that he could best serve his race and himself as an advocate of justice, he read law while taking the academic course, completing his reading under Judge William J. Clarke, of North Carolina, and was licensed to practice in all courts of that State by the Supreme Court in 1879.
Although Mr. White has won marked success in several walks of life, as lawyer, teacher and business man, it is his political achievements that have won for him not only a national reputation, but have evoked no small degree of comment from the press and diplomats of many of the countries of the old world. It is worthy of remark that up to this time, at the age of forty-nine, he has never held an appointive office, his commissions coming invariably from the hands of the sovereign people direct. He was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1880, and to the State Senate in 1884; was elected solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of North Carolina for four years in 1886, and for a like term in 1890; was nominated for Congress in 1894, but withdrew in the interest of harmony in his party. He made the race for Congress in 1896 and was triumphantly elected by a majority of 4,000, reversing a normal democratic majority of over 5,000—a change of fully 9,000 votes, indicating in no uncertain tone the confidence and esteem in which he was held by his friends and neighbors. He was re-elected in 1898. His services as a legislator were conscientious and valuable. At the close of his second term, he delivered a valedictory to the country, which was universally praised as the best, truest and most timely expression of the Negro's plea for equality of citizenship that ever rang through the halls of Congress. The speech was widely circulated, and was favorably commented upon by the leading newspapers of the nation.
Mr. White has accumulated quite a handsome fortune, his wealth being estimated at from $20,000 to $30,000. His personal popularity and the respect for his ability are attested by the fact that several honorary degrees have been conferred upon him by a number of the noted educational institutions of the land.
Mr. White is a thirty-third degree Mason. For six years he was Grand Master of Masons for the State of North Carolina, having filled most of the subordinate offices in that body before his elevation to the Grand Mastership.
Since his retirement from Congress, Mr. White has been engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D. C., and so favorably has he impressed his qualifications upon the bench and bar of the national capital that one of the judges publicly, and without precedent, complimented him in open court and set his methods up as an example for other lawyers who practice there. Eminent as are his abilities, Mr. White is proverbially modest. Of strong character, well-balanced mind and an unswerving sense of justice, liberal in views upon all subjects, political, social or religious, companionable in private life, unostentatious in manner of living or in the bestowal of charity, ready to sacrifice personal convenience to serve the worthy, Mr. White is indeed a typical American. The Negro people, in slavery or freedom, as serfs or citizens, offer no model more inspiring, no picture more inviting.
In presenting this subject to the public, I shall endeavor to treat it from a broad and liberal standpoint, eliminating all selfishness or individual political bias, and viewing the situation from the standpoint of an American citizen.
The first prerequisite to good government in a republic, is purity in the ballot. No stream can be pure unless its source is pure; neither can a republic hope for just and fair laws and the administration and execution of them, unless there is purity and fairness in the sources from whence these cardinal principles of government spring. Laws should be enacted for the whole people and not for individuals, races or sections—thereby securing the support and retaining the confidence of all the parts of our heterogeneous compact, to the end that a homogeneous whole may move in the same direction for the good of all concerned.
The Negroes ask for—and as a part of this republic—have a right to demand the perpetuation of these basic principles of our government. While we are young in citizenship, and admit having made many political mistakes, yet we are willing that the search-light of reason be thrown upon our acts, and a fair and impartial verdict rendered as to our conduct, when all the circumstances surrounding our variegated political history are taken into consideration. Liberated, enfranchised and turned loose among our former masters, who could not take kindly to our new citizenship, we naturally sought friendship and political alliance with those claiming to be our best friends—those who had been instrumental in obtaining our freedom. These new friends came largely from the Federal army, interspersed with many adventurers who followed in the wake of that army, seeking strange fields in which to ply their vocations. Many of these new-comers proved to be true friends to the Negro of the South and led us on and taught us as a faithful guardian would teach and care for his wards. But the great majority of them were wholly unscrupulous and worked upon the ignorance, inexperience and gullibility of the Negro, overtime, to place themselves into positions where they had unlimited sway. The result that followed was most natural—the use of public trust for private gain, the looting of many of the Southern states, the political degradation of the Negro, and the complete estrangement between him and his former neighbors. When all these things were accomplished, these human cormorants betook themselves to their Northern homes to live in ease and splendor on the results of their pillage, while the black man was left in the South to endure disfranchisement, torture and murder on account of the malice and hatred begotten from his first political experience.
Surrounded by such environments, the suppression of his right of franchise, the open and notorious examples of fraud, ballot-box stuffing and intimidation practiced in every Southern election for the last thirty years, on the one hand, and the unfaithfulness, "Jingoism," the free offering of bribes and the continued practice of duplicity, on the part of those claiming to be his friends, on the other hand, no fair-minded man would expect to find complete political perfection among a people thus treated. Thus has the Negro been obstructed, not only in politics, but his civil rights have been denied him, and the doors of many industries are closed against him.