San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-10-15
AN OPEN LETTER.


To Rev. Mack Henson, Austin, Tex:
Dear Sir and Friend: For a number
OF years I have felt 1 had reason TO
consider you close and intimate
friend OF mine. have regarded your
course on the prominent issues of the
day as emlnently right and believe
we have yet to note the occasion when
we have had essential differences,
until the day of my perusal of your
recent communication to the San An
tonic LIGHT. This difference grows
not out of the fact that 1 con-
slider you wiltully wrong in
any statement you have made
in your communication to the LIGHT,
but simply that you have been guilty
of misstatement of facts growing, no
doubt, out of pardonable ignorance
of the truth concerning which you
wife. 1 respectfully refer, sir,
to the following: "Mr. Quincy
has in his department today more
white persons than negroes and what
few negroes he has they are just as
near white as possible" I cannot
believe, coming from the source it
does, that you would Intentionally
wrong the man who for twenty years
has been politically the hopes of his
people. Learn then that out of the
possible $4,000 paid employees
of his Office over $1,000
per annum is drawn over
the signatures of negroes. And again
fully so per cent. of the negroes en-
ployed in the custom house, up to
date, come as near being unamalga-
mated as yourself. One visit paid
by you to the Galveston custom
house will assure you of the correct.
ness of my statements. You say
truthfully, when you say in reference
to the object of the lily whites: "Give
to them N. w. Cuney's official scalp
and they will cease to howl until the
next play comes off," Yes, the "next
play" means the next negro securing
tirst-class recognition OF his per-
sonal worthiness from ma
tional administration. The next
play" as you so appropriately |
designate it, will be to keep the negro
i'll the kitchens and spitoons of the |
party, and the next play will demon
strate it is not personally the politi- |
cal scalp of Wright Quincy that is |
wanted 80 much as the scalp of the |
whole race.
Twenty years of yoeman service for /
the race and party; twenty years of
experience in the most difficult prac.
tical schooling in the world; twenty
years of brushing against the great
est national minds of today and
thorough acquaintance with the rec
ord of every politician of note, in his
day in Texas, makes Wright
Quincy a constant menace to
those who would caucasianize
party leadership. The lily whites,
those "secretively and those more
openly" see in the destruction if
Wright Quincy, guarantee of safety
to themselves, and in their efforts to
destroy his influence with the people
who have been most identified by his
labors. q few negroes recreant enough
to every sense of manhood and pride,
Of race loyalty and fairness, simply
because with less than thirty offices
at his command, Mr.. Quincy could not
provide for seven hundred applicants,
have not been backward in circulate
ing the very rumor, that you have re.
produced to the detriment of the
negroes standing with his party,
without proper enquiry into its truCh.
AS already stated, we have never
in our.public uttersnces, had essential
differences, and especially now we
will have none, at time when the
negroes are more assaulted from
within than without. And when the
scales do drop from our eyes. we will
learn to have more respect for such
open foes as Newcombs, Urwitzs and
McPhersons of the party, than for
those who call US friends, and do the
Brutus act.
These corrections, permit me to say,
are made in no acrimonious spirit,
but with a desire the whole people
should know their duty, and that dis
Indignation should turn it's face from
our common cause. Yours for the
Truth, w. E. EAsToN.
E1JH piano II n