The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-09-04
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Useful Work.

Useful Work.
 Editor The Advertiser:
 Professor Waite. l. Fleming con tinues his valuable writing of the dark times of Reconstruction. The Rrofessor is postmaster in that diplo- macy or the literati. 50 much needed in securing publisher. He leaps with sangIroid into the heart of New Eng land. where Southern writers dare not even look, ordinarily. and there com mands market for his tales, which tell of the wrecking of States. the ousting or civil institutions, the ruin of persons and prostration of long es- abolished families, catastropBes, di- rectly traced to New Englands dearest
 The Yale Review, of May and Au- gust. current year. presents In each of the numbers mentioned, an elabor- ate paper from Professor Fleming on the "Freedman's Saving Bank. an historic victim of pharasaism, in guise of white mans sympathy for negro needs. forty years ago.
 If publications of this kind of his- 1E to ay fhe whtea ae RortS and south the success of the negro in recovery from the philanthropy" forced on him in the initial of his emancipation, The fact that the Southern negro es- caped annihilation by rejecting "a long list of gratuities of counsel offered to him forty. years ago. from without his | sense of right. is the most active arr gument the race can offer in support of It's claims upon the future. Tn
 justice sonas to the nespH race ss it s ourselves. we must see that in every outbreak of fanaticism. from the raid of John Brown to the attempts out side this State. to nullify the suffrage groes of Alabama have acted discreet 1y. An example of this discretion Is appropriately introduced here. A for mer negro slave of Greensboro is now President of a progressive and sub stantial Savings Bank of Birmin gham. founded by him and conducted by him and his negro associates, for fifteen years without a suspicion of bad man. agement.
 The moral influence oe the Freed mems Savings Bank, chartered by Congress in 1885. was vast the very worst worst men who promoted the institution. was rob. while the race pride of the ne- groes connected with the mana management 5, : of an responsibility of authority cre- ated for them by the white managers. Booker Washingten's school and every money. would be very different in- stitution in our midst if the resident negroes yielded to alien influences at tempted through the schools
 OIHCGES OA tIG dEIilyt QinCCAS ok bhO Freedmen's Bureau. white missionar- les from New England to the freed men. were officers of the Freedmen's Savings Bank and its numerous branches. They stole it's funds merci- iessiy.
 The total deposits, all by negroes. in the branch bank at Montgomery for the month of August. is72. was $23S : 10e .0s; for Mobile. $1.0s9.os7.Os, white politicians required negro clerks. etc, to be employed. The management as thus made incompetent. A draft for ss6.1o was charged on the books of one of the branches at $3160. At the washington city branch an old negro. Daddy Wilson was cashier and his son-fn- law was assistant cashier. White men managed the cashiers ns Tt but the two negro ha6rc heads spent money freely and lived In ashy-style on the deposits.
 Congress neglected to examine the bank accounts. dishonesty of adminis- trations everywhere ruled the opera tons. The bank failed The losses to negro depositors was heavy. Eff. fort was made to induce Congress to make good the failure, without suc- cess. D.