The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1888-07-25

Washington the Seat of the Best Coiored
Society.
washington letter. ]

Washington letter.1
Washington is colored mans para
disc. Here at the Nations Capital he
enjoys social and educational advant-
ages that no other city in America af-
fords Here he finds his highest intel
lectual and social development. So
numerous is the class of cultivated col
ored people that they really form a
community sufficiently large to make
themselves independent of the masses
of their race on the one hand and the
white aristocracy on the other.
Away from Washington. in the small
er communities, the condition of the
wealthy and cultivated colored man is
too often a pitiable one. His natural
and acquired attainments lift him so
high above the rest of his race that he
looks down upon them with ill-conceal-
ed contempt, and could no more ASSOC
ciate with them than could white per-
son occupying the same relative posi-
ton. Yet the memorable color line"
shuts him off as effectually from white
society as if he were buried at the bot
tom of the sea, and SO he stands almost
alone-a melancholy example of the
III
an ambition to outstrip ones fellows.
To such colored men Washington holds
out inducements that are denied every
where else.
Under the civil-service law he is Civ
en-, if he possesses the necessary educa-
ton, an equal opportunity with his
white brother to secure a place in the
Government employ. That many of
his race have done so is shown by the
fact that more than fifty colored men
hold good paying positions in the clas-
sified service in the executive depart
ments to-day. These people, it should
be understood, are not mere messengers
and laborers, but bona-fide clerks, sit
ting in the same rooms, doing the same
work, and drawing the same pay that
white clerks do in their respective
grades.
The salaries drawn by these fifty
clerks range from 5000 to 81 600 year.
In the Third Auditors Office, for ex-
ample, one young colored man is paid
$1,000, two are paid 81, 400 each, and
two more 81 200 each. Auditor Will
Jams speaks we'll of their efficiency and
department. He says their work is
fully up to the average of the other
clerks, and that in every way they are
worthy of the highest commentator
and esteem. Other bureaus who en-
ploy colored clerks speak equally vel;
of them.
These clerks form no inconsiderable
part of the more exclusive Washington
colored society. Associated with them
are number of colored lawyers, ply
sicians, college professors, and retired
shopkeepers. Drs. Purv;ss and Shadd,
the two surgeons in charge at the
Freedman's Hospital, and their wives
are among the more prominent mem
bers of this social set, which includes
also the families of Wormley, the cele-
brated hotel proprietor; ex-Congress-
man Lynch of Mississippi, ex-senator
and Register of the Treasury Blanche
X. Bruce, James +. Cook for many
years Tax Collector of the District,
Fred Douglass, and others.
Probably hundred members Of this
little coterie are financially well to do.
Mr.. Cook, for instance, is possessed of
fortune estimated at 100000; the
Wormleys are worth as much more
Fred Douglass pays taxes on 100000
worth of good city property, and the
others value their possessions at from
$65, 900 to $40, 600 each.
They live in many cases in fashiona-
BILE neighborhoods Their houses are
well furnished and their children re-
ceive at the Howard University and
less pretentious institutions of learning
educational advantages as good as
those to be obtained by sheir white
brethren.
The ladies entertain their friends
with dignity and good breeding that
would shame many of their white neigh
bors. Altogether the rich colored resi-
dents of Washington enjoy life quite as
well, perhaps, as any who live within its
precincts.
The aggregate wealth of the colored
Vashingtonians is estimated at not less
than $5,000,000