Omaha daily bee., 1888-06-18
FRED DOUGLAS PRETTY HOME.
A Visit to the Foremost Negro of
the Land.
POWERFUL COAST DEFENSES.
Graydon's System of
Firing Dynamite-Thurman's
Nomination - Correspon-
dents Doomed Him.
A Prince Among His People.

venerable Fred Douglas, the greatest living
representative negro. Since Mr.. Douglas
dropped out Of official life-he left the Office
OF recorder of deeds for the District of Col
umbia upon the introduction of President
C~leveland-he has almost dropped out of
public view. For quite a year after MIR.
Douglas retired from public life few, even OF
his closest friends, knew where he was. A
short time afterward he took the forum,
and has since been lecturing. He has Just
returned from a trip to Europe, and looks as
hale and hearty as he did a score of years
ago, although he is now running up into the
seventies. Mr.. Douglass residence Is stu
ated on the top of q hill which rises a hun
dred feet above the Potomac, and is located
in the southeastern suburbs of Anacostia, a
little village about five miles southeast of
the white house. The cottage Is an old
fashioned one, of medium size, two stories,
and made of wood. Its interior arrange.
ment and furnishings are very similar to
the old plantation houses in the south. The
furniture is a~ntiquated, the pictures on the
walls represent the taste and character of its
occupants, and the general atmosphere of
the surroundings is that of a well-to-do old
citizen. Surrounding the north front of the
building is a spacious piazza, on which l found
ship chairs, a rustic %settee, and other com
Portable seats. The view from the front of
Mr.. Douglass house is one of the most
magnificent to be found around Washington.
Seven or eight miles to the north and west,
across the eastern branch of the Po-
tomac, over the capitol building, over Wash
ington, out past Howard university, the eye
perceives the soldiers home, situated on an
quite as high as the home Of the
colored patriot. Turning the eye westward
in the far distance the top of Oak View the
summer residence of the president, can be
dimly seen beyond Georgetown. Directly
west you look up the Potomac along the
wharves of Washington and Georgetown,
and a little farther south Arlington, Fort
Myer and the billy country beyond meets
the eye. Going around the house one gets a
full view of the Potomac river thirty or forty
miles, or as far as the eye can penetrate, and
Alexandria and Mt. Vernon comes into view.
Mr.. Douglas home shows culture, refine
ment and gentillty. The old-fashioned fire.
places are filled with statues of the Greek
Slave, the Angel of Night, Venus, the Amer
lean Slave, while on the mantel-pieces are
busts of Lincoln and other American patriots.
On a wall in one of the parlors is q life-sized
painting of Mr.. Douglas, while, hanging
about in profusion and artistic taste, are
steel engravings of sacred subjects. There
is a large bookcase in MIR. Douglas private
Office, and in it are works Of history, poetry,
literature, religion, etc. MIR. Douglas three
or four daughters and as many sons are all
married. With his recently acquired wife,
who is said to be of pure white blood, he
lives a life of quietude and ease. He has
many callers, and he entertains them
%splendidly. On the hill where his residence
is located is a beautiful garden and a quantity
of fruit trees, where the old gentleman
spends the hours he has from his lectures
and studies.
About half of the residents OF Anacostia
are colored and there is almost a constant
stream of negroes going to or returning from
Mr.. Douglas house during the hours for
calling. He gives advice freely and wisely
to the colored people in distress, and is q
missionary in several ways. MIR. Douglas is
especially enthusiastic on the subject of poll
tics, and says he intends to devote most of
in behalf of his party. He thinks the colored
voters should be grateful to the party hat
rescued them from slavery, and avs that it
is with great difficulty that he can restrain
himself from talking politics in his ~non-parti-
san lectures. Mr.. Douglas has an ample
competence, which he saved from his Office
and which he has accumulated by l~ecturlng.
He is in a position to do much good in the
elevation of his race and says that is now the
ambition of his life. He is well educated,
well read, and is one of the most kindly and
cultured gentlemen one meets in a life time.
~.
There appears to be every indication that
within the next five years enormous strides
will be made by the United States towards
securing adequate protection against foreign
invasion. This protection will not be accom-
plished, in all probability, by the old and OBJ
solete system of Notifications, which were
sufficient for other days and generations in
the early part of the present century. In.
stead Of them, the United States will prob
ably be armed with weapons of defensive
warfare so powerful in their destructive ca
pacity as to convince the would-be invader
that his armida may be blown out OF the
water and totally annihilated before he can
fire his first gun, no matter how thickly
plated with armour his vessel may be.
A great deal has been heard within the
past few months of the Zallnski gun, and
the army appropriation biz carries an
item of S500,0O o to be used in supplying the
military service of the United States with
this gun. 1t is also understood that the
naval bill will have a similar amount for
like weapons for the navy. But there is
another method of firing dynamite which
will also be adopted, in all probability, and
which, owing to its simplicity, promises
greater results than the Zallnski gun. Dur
ing the Tonquin war, the Chinese govern
ment employed an officer of the United
STATES navy, LleuIcIduI OTdyuOH, 10 DlOCkdue
the Cantor river in order that the progress
of the French fleet might be checked. Lieu
tenant GraydOn could not secure an eX-
tended leave of absence for the purpose of
conducting this work, and, in consequence,
resigned his position in the United States
navy. He was so successful in his work
that he was offered something like $500, 900
by the viceroy of Tonquin to blocade in a
similar manner the Min river, but the
viceroy of Canton, fearing "A visit of
the French fleet, declined TO allow him to
leave, and the offer had TO be declined, and
the result was that Foo Chow was captured
by the French. Lieutenant Graydon has
devised a system for firing dynamite
from ordinary c%annons, which system has
been testnd at Sandy Hook with remarkable
results. There was presented to the military
committee of the house, one day this week,
most military and naval officers of the coun-
try, in which they spoke in terms OF the high
est praise of the GraydOn method OF e1plod-
ing dynamite. Admiral Jouett expresses the
firm conviction that the use OF dynamite with
its wonderful power TO annihilate VIII prove
TO be the most effective means OF
checking warfare. AS soon as the
nations OF the earth ascertain that
the declaration of war means absolute de-
struction for their fleets and their soldiers,
arbitration will be resOrted to, instead OF APP
pealing to gun powder and the sabre. A
large sum has been appropriated for testing
this new weapon, and an experiment VIII
probably be made under the direction of the
officers of the army and navy sometime this