The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-10-23
THE COMING RACE.
Clement Garnett MOrgan's Big
Achievement.
PUBLIC OPINION AT THE HUB.
1t is Favorable to the Young COIOred Man
What rHarvard's Secretary Says About
The Seniors Selection.

Especial to THE HRRAID-Examiner Dispatch.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22.-Clement G.
Morgan is a bigger man here to-day than
John L. Sullivan is in Boston. The colored
people have learned with exultant pride of
the phenomenal success of the young
negro who was chosen orator of the senior
class of Harvard university. Everybody
is talking about the matter tonight and to
the colored people of the capital the an
nouncement is as golden as the memory of
the edict Of emancipation. Clement Gar
nett Morgan was born at Fredericksburg
Va, alittle over twenty-eight years ago. His
father and mother were slaves then.
Twenty-one years ago the family came to
Georgetown, where the majority of them
are living still. The struggles of Clements
boyhood, struggles between the public
school in Washington and the barber shop
in Georgetown, have been chronicled.
Clement has two brothers and two sisters,
all living.
The mother of the family died sixteen
years ago, and the father, at the age of
seventy three, died in Georgetown last
year. With the exception of Clement and
William, all the survivors of the family,
with their numerous offspring, live in the
old family house, 1915 Twenty sixth street,
Georgetown. The house is superior inside
and outside to the average shanties of col
ored citizens, but is by no means an ideal
place for study.
Although the name was not in the city
directory and no white man knows where
the colored man lives IN Georgetown, the
World correspondent had no difficulty in
finding out where the relatives of Clement
Garnett Morgan lived. To drop into the
first barber shop open was all that was
necessary.
Sarah, the school teacher, happened to
answer the correspondents call. She is
rather tlmld in manner and If you did not
know her to be a school teacher and sister of
Glen you would suppose she was really
very stupid. A good natured, vacant sort
of laugh was her answer to the newspaper
mans questions. Her fathers full name,
she SAID, was Clement c. Morgan. For
what does c. stand!'
Il think it is Cecil said she, ''but l am
not sure. You had better put down Just
&C. see!" Then she laughed as the neces-
sary supplement to the incomplete explana-
ton. Her mothers name is Elizabeth Gar
nett. Just where the old lady got that
name the daughter didn't know, nor did
she know who owned her mother when the |
latter was slave, but she was not owned
by the Garnetts. Mrs. Fitzgerald, of |
Fredericksburg, owned her father, but that |
lady is dead
Neither father nor mother ever had any |
education whatever, and if they had lived |
to hear Clements Grafton at Harvard, they |
would wonder what he was talking about |
One thing he never did talk about to his |
relatives and FRIENDSHIP never said word |
about his own aims or expectations, his |
studies, etc. Since he left home years ago |
he has paid his family a visit once year |
and wrote home frequently. The last time |
he was here was last year, when his father |
died. He did not say word about his studies |
at Harvard or about the success he had at !
tained.n
His first regular job, according to
his sister, was as a bootblock to Admiral |
Selfridge, in Washington. Where Glenn |
makes ''shine'' in future, it won't be on |
shoe leather. The young man has risen |
without any outside help whatever. Why |
did he not follow the example eff his broth |
ers and sisters and get married.. His sis |
tiers say he had not time He never thought |
of anything but work and study, and al. |
ways said he would not marry until his |
school days were over.
81 guess he'll marry now he's come out"
said his sister last night. "There's a
young lady as lives in Springfield, Ill, that
1 think he'll marry. They taught school
together in ST. LOuis.''
Morgan may rely upon it that if he comes
to Washington his friends will give him a
great send off.