The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-11-06

were made special banqueting tables
| for hungry spoilsmen. The efficient
| Commissioner of Agriculture, secretary
! and fertilizer inspectors were sum-
marily deposed and their places filled
| by an Heterogeneous conglomeration of
| men, the like of which has seldom been
seen. The administration of this de-
partment became so scandalous in many
ways that Mr.. ]. w. Bailey, editor of the
Baptist church organ, resigned from
the board of directors. In his letter of
resignation of July %. 1898, he states
as his reasons, first, the transferring
of the corrupt John r. Smith from the
penitentiary to the position of Commits
sioner of Agriculture; second, that 1.-THE
members of the board held sessions of
three or four days duration-being paid
by the day-seVeral times a year, to
perform duties which would require
scarcely four hours" third, that 1.-The
Department of Agriculture has grown
into an institution for the reward of
political workers" Several professors
and officers of the A. and M. College
We're made to walk the plank and no
doubt others would have been ousted
except for the storm of public indigna-
ton which the affair called forth
Mr.. e. V. Cox, a decent Republican
member of the board of directors, be-
ing out of sympathy with the policy
of making changes for political reasons,
resigned his office.
Governor Russell placed upon the
| board of directors of the Institution for
the Blind, one Jim Young, a notorious
negro politician, together with three
other men of equal unfitness.
The Fusionists having obtained con-
troll made wholesale changes in the
| teaching force of the institution, some
| eight or ten officials being routed. Mr..
J. Rowan Rogers, a defaulting sheriff
of Wake county cit being a matter of
record that his bondsmen paid his de-
ficiency amounting to over $9,000) was
elected steward Of that institution.
Rev. Joseph Perry, a negro politician
| of Wake county, was made principal of
the department for his race, supplant-
ing a very competent man who under
stood, and taught the language of the
blind The negro principal, not knowing
the blind alphabet from nut meg
crater, it was not necessary to elect
an extra teacher to do the work of the
man he supplanted.
The negro, Jim Young, had his daugh-
ter, about 16 years old, elected teach
.er of music. This same negro now in
such high feather with the Governor,
was denounced by him in a letter to Mr..
follows:
II hear that you and Col Myers were
named by the Jim Young Locky gang
at Rockingham. The decent Republi-
cans at this end regret that men of
character like yourself and Col. Myers
should be yoked with a gang of scoun-
drels with whom not single respect
able man in this region will affiliate"
Among the directors of these institu-
lions was Pro- Chas. II. Meserve, re-
fined and accomplished Republican and
the president of Shaw University. He
became so Disguised with the manage
ment that ne could not remain on the
board, and in his letter of resignation
| he said: II cannot conscientiously, with
self-respect and conscientious desire to
do my duty remain in position where
must share the responsibility, when a
majority of the board has adopted a
| line of policy which, in my judgment,
| is positively detrimental to the highest
| good of both the institution and the
State / have felt for many years that
the spoils system as practised so gen
orally by the political parties when in
| power, is a menance and one or the
greatest dangers to a healthy body
polite.
Individual efficiency and high moral
alone subserve the highest interests OF
the public service"
| Soon after Governor Russell was in
Quoted INTO office, Robert Hancock, a
| low politician of Craven county, was
| elected president of the Atlantic and
| Norta Carolina Railroad. All the State
directors of the road were fusion spoils-
men. In a short time the mother OF
Miss Annie Abbott entered suit
/ @ fn,. lr1o
ton of her daughter (Who by the way
was a niece of Hancock's wife, The
suit was net brought to issue for pru-
Dental reasons. but the charge was re-
iterated by the unfortunate girl in a
published statement, wherein she al
| leges that he used a pistol to intimidate
her. Hancock vas expelled from the
church of which he was a member, and
on the II h of February, 1897. he was re-
leased from office by the directors of
the board. This action was necessary
to satisfy pubic sentiment, but Han
cock lost no favor with his political
henchmen. Upon the recommendations
of his confederates, his young son was
appointed postmaster at Newbern and
| he was installed as clerk in the money
| order department
Coming down to matters of local adj
ministration it will be remembered that
| the Legislature doctored the charters OF
| Wilmington and Newbern 50 that the
| people of those cities elected only one
alderman for each ward, while an equal
nurnber was appointed by the Governor
This scheme vested those municipal
governments in the hands of one man
who pulled the wires and nodded his
head in the State capitol. In the city
of Wilmington there are three negro
aldermen, fourteen negro policemen and
seventeen negro officers in the fire de-
partment. In the county, besides the
Registers office being manned by ne
groes. there are four negro, deputy
| sheriffs and forty negro magistrates.
! The city of NeWbern, in a similar man
ner, is under negro domination. Inspired
| by their white confederates and COM
peers, these negroes have become very
offensive to the white element of those
cieties and such bitter race feeling has
been stirred up that both negroes and
whites have armed themselves in readi-
ness for a conflict.
The town charter of Greenville was
also doctored by the last Legislature
in the interest of a gerrymander, which
placed that town under Republican
control. Four negroes and two white
men were elected aldermen. The mayor
and chief of pOlica chosen nv the al