CHAPTER XVI.
EFFICIENCY OF NEGRO.
The records of the conduct of Negroes in office, with the exception of the rascality of those in power in the South during the Reconstruction Period, are creditable indeed, to the race from which they sprang. Responsibility for the scandals attaching to the rule of the race in some of the Southern States directly after the war are chargeable not to the Negro but to the corruption of the white men who imposed on the Negro by taking advantage of his ignorance and making him the cat’s paw with which they attempted to extricate themselves from many difficulties without the stain of dishonor.
The first Negroes to become members of the legislature of any State in the Union were Edward G. Walker and Charles L. Mitchell of Massachusetts in 1866. The records show they discharged their duties with intelligence and honor.
The first holding a position under appointment by the government was Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett of Philadelphia who was appointed minister resident and consul general to the government of Hayti in 1869.
He was an educated Negro of great ability and was engaged in teaching for many years. The “Hand Book of Hayti,” of which he was the author, has been translated into many languages.
He was a member of the American Geographical Society and of the Connecticut Historical Society.
The number of colored officers, clerks and other employees in the service of the United States Government at the present time is 22,440 with salaries aggregating an annual income of $12,456,760.00.
The qualification of the large majority of these employees was tested under civil service rules and so it is seen this large number got into the service through merit alone.
Out of a population of 12,000,000 people, with a force of 20,000 trained in the government of the country it is idle to assume a sufficient number for the proper administration of the laws of the territory could not be secured.
In the matter of military genius and personal bravery as well as in preparation for statesmanship by reason of education and patriotism the records show the Negro to be well equipped.
There are eleven colored officers in the regular army of the United States at the present time. Three Negroes have been graduated from West Point.
At the order of the government for service in Mexico, the first to go to the front in search of Villa and his bandits was the Tenth cavalry composed of Negroes which has distinguished itself for service in this punitive expedition as it distinguished itself at the battle of Las Guasimas in Cuba when it came to the rescue of Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders.
The first to go to the front in the Spanish-American War, in 1898, were the four NEGRO regiments, the Tenth Cavalry, the Twenty-fifth Infantry, which took a prominent part in the battle of El Caney, the Ninth Cavalry, which with the Twenty-fourth Infantry and the Tenth Cavalry, rendered heroic service in the battle of San Juan Hill. The Ninth and Tenth Cavalry have the reputation of being the best Indian fighters in the United States Army.
It does not appear from the records of the Military Secretary at Washington that the Negro is lacking in any essential quality for the performance of the duty of a soldier.
The people of that section of the country where most of the argument against his ability as a soldier originates were quite willing enough to enlist him in the Confederate States Army, or that portion of the race which had been made free previous to the Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1864 the Confederate Congress, at Richmond, passed an act making all male Negroes, with certain exceptions, between the ages of eighteen and fifty liable for the performance of such duties in the Confederate Army, in the way of work in connection with the military defenses as the Secretary of War might prescribe, and provided for them in rations, clothing and compensation. Provision was also made at the same time for the employment of 20,000 Negro slaves for similar duty by the Secretary of War.
In November, 1861, at a review of 28,000 Confederate troops in New Orleans, one of the most prominent regiments was colored, consisting of 1,400 free Negroes. The members of the companies comprising this regiment according to The Picayune of that city, supplied themselves with arms without aid from the Confederate Government.
The worst that can be said against this regiment is that it existed at all for the defense of a government that sought to continue its members in perpetual slavery.
Nearly 200,000 Negro soldiers were employed in the United States Army in the Civil War. These formed 161 regiments of which 141 were infantry or cavalry, 12 heavy artillery and 1 light artillery.
The Negro troops fought gloriously in many of the bloodiest battles of the war. Among the engagements in which they were particularly distinguished for bravery and heroism were the battles of Milliken’s Bend on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, in July 1863, the assault on Port Hudson near Baton Rouge, La., in 1863, at Fort Wagner, a Charleston, S. C., defence, in 1863, and at all the assaults on Petersburg, Va., in 1864 as well as in the battle of Nashville, Tenn., fought in December 1864.
In the Revolutionary War as well as in the War of 1812, Negroes were enlisted and served with such distinction in the latter as to inspire the following address by General Andrew Jackson, afterwards President of the United States.
“To the men of color—Soldiers: I knew before your enlistment that you could endure the hardships of hunger and thirst and brave the dangers of war. I knew that you loved the land of your nativity, and that, like ourselves you had to defend all that is most dear to man. But you have surpassed my hopes. I have found in you, united to these qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds.
“Soldiers! The President of the United States shall be informed of your conduct on the present occasion; and the voices of the Representatives of the American nation shall applaud your valor as your General now praises your ardor.”
It was the distinguished service of two battalions of 500 Negroes that elicited this eulogy from the Commander in Chief of the forces engaged in the second war with England.
Commodore Perry used equally forcible language in his praise of the bravery and conduct of the Negroes under his command at the battle of Lake Erie. He said that Negro soldiers seemed to be absolutely insensible to danger.
There were about 3,000 Negroes employed in the Revolutionary War by General Washington. An equal or greater number were employed by the British.
Some of the most heroic deeds of the war for Independence were performed by the men of color. Major Pitcairn, in charge of the British forces at the battle of Bunker Hill, was killed by a Negro named Peter Salem. A petition was drawn by some of the principal officers of the American Army to secure recognition by the Massachusetts Colony for Solomon Poor, a Negro, for distinguished service at the battle of Bunker Hill. Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first American to become a martyr in the Boston massacre.
The Black Legion of Count D’Estaing saved the defeated American and French Army from complete annihilation at the siege of Savannah on October 9, 1779, by covering the retreat and repulsing the charge of the British.
In every war fought on American soil, the Negroes whenever allowed to participate, have displayed a courage and heroism that is not only a credit to the race but a credit to mankind.
In poetry and literature, as well as war, the Negro has arisen to distinction. Indeed, the first woman, either white or black, to attain to literary distinction in this country was a Negro, a slave at that.
She was Phyllis Wheatly of Boston, who wrote poems on various subjects, religious and moral, of high literary value. One of the poems was addressed to General Washington and was appreciated by him as reference to it by him was made in a letter to Joseph Reed under date of February 10, 1776. Through the endorsement of several men distinguished in literature her poems were collected and published in London under the title, “Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phyllis Wheatly, a Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatly of Boston, in New England.”
Paul Lawrence Dunbar, born in 1872, was a noted Negro poet.
William Stanley Braithwaite, author of “The Book of Georgian Verse” and the reviewer of poetry appearing in the standard magazines is classed among the geniuses of American verse writers.
“A Little Dreaming” is a volume by Fenton Johnson of Chicago that has been favorably commented on in this country and Europe.
The most famous of the Negro Shakesperian scholars was Ira Aldridge of Bel Air Maryland. He is said to have had no equal in the personification of Othello, the Moor. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the First Class for “Art and Science” by the King of Prussia, a distinction that had never before been awarded to any but Humbolt, Spentini, the composer and Liszt, the musician. His title in England was that of “Royal Saxe Ernest House Order,” a title of higher degree than that of “Sir” so much coveted in Britain. He was a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of St. Petersburg.
Bert Williams, another Negro actor, bears the distinction of being the “Greatest Comedian on the American Stage.”
The inventive genius of the Negro is to be seen in the records of the patent office at Washington. These show the application of a wide range of inventive talent, including agricultural implements, in wood and metal working machines, in land conveyances on road and steel rail tracks, in ocean going vessels, in chemistry and chemical compounds, in electricity in all its wide range of uses, in aereonautics, in new designs of house furniture and bric-a-brac, in mechanical toys and amusement devices.
It is said that a Negro really invented the cotton gin, or gave to Ely Whitney, who was the patentee of it, the suggestions which aided in the completion of this invention. As early as 1834 a Negro, Henry Blair, of Maryland, secured a patent on a corn harvester.
Soon after the Dred Scott Decision in 1857 the Patent Office rendered a decision that a Negro could not take out a patent on an invention, but since 1862, when the decision was rescinded, no restrictions have been placed on the use of the office by Negroes and a great number of useful inventions have been patented by them.
Robert Pelham, of Detroit, an employee in the Census Bureau, has devised a machine that tabulates the statistics from the manufacturer’s schedules in a way that displaces a dozen men in a given quantity of work, doing the work economically, speedily and with faultless precision. The returns in royalties from his invention, which is patented, greatly exceeds the income Mr. Pelham receives from the Government salary paid him for services in the office of the Census Bureau.
At the present time there are nearly 50,000 Negro business enterprises of various kinds, some requiring a knowledge of banking, insurance, manufacturing, undertaking and hospital training.
The combined business of these enterprises total over one billion dollars annually.
There are about 66 banks in all with a capital and surplus of over $2,000,000.00.
Reference elsewhere made in this book to the progress of the Negro in farming operations indicates that he is advancing more rapidly in agriculture than any of the other pursuits. In educational and church work it is shown, also, that he is well prepared to take care of himself should the separation of the races ever become a reality. The church denominational statistics show there are about 40,000 Negro Churches of Christ in America, with communicants numbering over 4,000,000. The value of Negro church property is about $60,000,000.00.
From $200,000.00 to $250,000.00 is spent annually on home missions. For foreign missions the race spends from $100,000.00 to $150,000.00 annually.
By every test or qualification and efficiency the Negro, in government, in the science of war, in the art of agriculture, in manufacturing, invention, medicine, law and literature is well prepared to assume the government of his race in a territory of his own. This insures him the same protection from the persecution and injustices of the stronger race that enabled the latter to succeed so famously when they, too, in the course of human events, found it necessary to dissolve the political bonds that united them to a dominant authority that gave them no justice.