Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1891-01-30
AN OFFICE THAT SEEKS TIE
MAN.
= Ela sfl q 70 Ispsrls csa,rsIly Pass


Tho ntsrion to Lsberia CcnoraIiy Pass
port to Etornity.
The Rev. DIR. Alexander Clark, OF
Missouri, has been o prominent figure
in colored society hero in New York for
the last couple Of weeks. President
Harrison has Just appointed him Mine
lister to the black Republic OF Liberia.
II may scem strange thing to say, bns
1t true. even in this era os strife for
official place, that the administration
has found it difficult 10 fill the position
given to MIR. Clark, although the salary
attached to it is s., 600 per annum.
There We're SCORES OF applicants for the
place, oil of them colored men, but few,
nj any Of them, possessing the requisite
qualifications. Itmny be oonsolatory
for the unsuccessful fellows who have
had to. stand aside for Mr.. Clark's APP
,pointment to know That the man no
has won the place will probably need 3
successor before o year OF two is over.
The fever season generally kills with
certainty along that part Of the African
coast, and our Government has thus far
refused to pny the expenses of carrying
homo dead diplomats for burial We
have had some curious ministers of late
to that blnck republic. During the
Cleveland administration there was q
Jolly old negro preacher in North Caro-
Lima named Nose Hopkins. He was .
thorn in the side OF Senators Ransom
and Vance, for he was Republican
.campaigner of natural oratorical power,
and had great influence with the black
Z voters of the State, Everybody was as
tonished when it was announced that
President Cleveland had appointed
Nose as Minister to Liberia, but the
secret OF the matter was that there was
AN election coming on aud the two
senators wanted Nose out of the State,
and SO they had him sent to Liberia.
They succeeded in getting rid of him
more thoroughly than they had antici-
pated, for in less than year after his
-arrival on the coast, Nose went the way
most of the newcomers to that section
of the world do-he died.
a Kansas politician named Taylor
next tried his fortune at Monrovia, the
capital of the republic, as our repre-
sentative. He was sort of half-barber,
half-preacher, and he had not been
there long before he was arm-deep in u
big fight with tho authorities in refer
ence to some alleged slight of his official
character. But when the fever season
came wandering -up the coast, the
Kansas man, fearing the fate of his prede-
cessor, hurried back to America When
ho reached America he sstaid few
waoks ut the Hoffman House, and the
istor ies he told of the conditions, morals,
/. ar 4 mode of life amid the negroes OF
HAT mu5h- depravod Libeliap Republic
ought to be printed. il any one dared
to undertake the task, for private circu-
lation among the memb ers of Congress
when the next bill is provided for Q
50, 1000 salary for minister to that de.
ightful spot.
Probably the bost minister AL the
most serviceable one for himself and
for his country that we ever sent I'd
Liberia was j. Milton Turner, who
lives in ST. Louis, and whose brown
face and bright African intellect has
been on every side of politics ut times
for the last twenty years. The genial
Turner was minister in the old Grant
Hayes days, and he had some common
sense as to the Icy of performing his
diplomatic duties. He went to his post
at Liberia, presented his credentials,
and then quietly slipped over to Paris,
where he lived nicely in the Latin
quarter, going down the coast couple
OF times year to see if the secretary
he had appointed was dead and buried.
Nobody ever found any fault with him,
and he was the only man who ever pre-
tended to represent us there who re-
turned in love with Liberia and its
people. He had seen little of the Gov
srnment and nothing Of the population.
a-Neio York Star.