Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-04-23
4 cRuSHED NEGRO POLITICIAN.


Chicago Times says: The President will
recognize the colored people of the country
as political element, but he wishes to do it
without making the color line conspicuous.
All that he can do he will do to obliterate
that line and make the colored people feel
that they are American citizens and not a
special variety-a sort of national wards, for
example. Several colored men have been
urged for the position of Register of the
Treasury because Register Bruce is COL
ored man. No colored man will succeed
Mr.. Bruce. The idea that one office belongs
to one class of the community and another
office belongs to another class will not be
encouraged. The President intends to ap-
point colored man or two to office, and he
wants to do it soon. He feels that it is time
to do it, and he is trying to decide what
place to put a colored man in. There are
several members of the colored race whom
the President knows, and of whom he thinks
very we'll. His selection will be made from
such men as Rev. G.. S. Smith, OF Bloom
ington, Wright, of Cincinnati, Mathews, of
Albany, and George r. Downing, of Rhode
Island.
Recently, when he crushed Chase, the ed
itor of the Bee, to which Bishop Hood SUBJ
sequently referred in his address before the
A. NJ. E. Zion Conference as a merited re-
buke, the President defined his position
very fully to the other members of the del
egation, who, with Chase, called upon him.
He assured them that he should protect them
in all their rights; that the party he repre-
sented would redeem all the pledges it had
made for the full and equal protection and
recognition of the colored people. He told
them to respect themselves, to respect the
law, to acquire the habit of thinking of
IL A MI
feet equality with white citizens, and not as
a particular set, apart from the white peo-
pie, with special necessities and ambitions,
and above all he warned them to beware of
putting too much confidence in disreputable
leaders of their own color. The great dam
ger, he told them, was of trusting them
selves implicitly to unworthy men of their
own race like Chase, who used them simply
to promote their private ambitions and in
terests. Chase published in his paper last
November, just after the election, a lurid
article, of which the following isan extract {:
"It is time for every American negro in
the South to make an appeal to arms and
fire every Democratic home where negro
killers live, from palace to hut, in retail
iation for the foul and dastardly murders
that were committed in the South. We
speak without fear and in defense of the
helpless negro. 1t is far more noble to die
the death Of free man than to live an igno-
minous slave. The 153 electoral votes from
the South were obtained through theft and
assassination. Schemes of the most outra-
geous character were resorted to, negroes
murdered, ballot boxes stuffed, etc. Under
these circumstances, it will cost the lives of
millions to inaugurate Grover Cleveland"
The paper had been furnished to the Pres
ident, and when Chase began to make his
great Oratorical effort the President pulled
out the paper and asked him if he wrote
the article alluded to. Without paying him
any further attention the President gave the
rest Of the delegation the assurances and ad-
vice summarized above. Again and again
the unhappy Chase tried to make an eXpla-
nation, but the President would not look at
him or recognize his existence, farther than
to say to the others that such an article
could not be explained and there was no oc-
casion for talking about it. Chase managed
to say, while the President was talking, that
the article was written under misappre-
hension, and more light having been poured
in upon him, he made corrections in the
later issues of his paper, which he would
be happy to send to the President; but the
President did not express any desire to
see a file Of The Bee.