The Washington bee., 1909-01-16
The Dark Secrets
HON GEORGE c. PERKINS,
"REMINISCENCES OF EX-SEN-
ATOR GEORGE c. SMITH,
OF SOME PROMINENT
OBERLIN MEN.

men who have entered public life and
won distinction along that line.
In the absence of any formal data
and in the short time I have to get
myself together, l must trust almost
wholly to my memory running back
forty-three years.
When I tell you, that, of the three
thousand men-I speak in round
numbers, who have garduated from
that institution, and the thousands OF
undergraduates who have gone forth
since the first class of 1887, that only
nine of that number have entered
upon a public career you may think
it strange and unusual, and yet, when
Won consider the dominant idea un-
deriving the establishment OF the IN
stitution in I833-it is not at all sur
prising.
The men and women who conceiv-
ed the thought of such a school and
put it into execution, were OF the
loftiest Christian spirit-inspired as
it were-deeply imbued with an up
lift of the lowly the building up OF
the cause of Christ and the spreading
abroad His Kingdom on earth among
all nations of the earth: the co-edu-
cation of the sexes and the races
the first experiment up to that time,
in this country.
In its very inception they believed
in and taught the Fatherhood OF God
and the brotherhood of man. They
taught hard work, self reliance: d
school of perfect equality, in all that
the term implies; hence say that 1t
is not strange that so great a number
of those students should have taken
to the professions; Ministry, Medi-
cine, Law, teaching, and business, and
so few should have gone into the un-
certain whirligig of politics.
The election of Senator Theodore
E. Burton. of Ohio, to succeed Sen
ator ]. B. Foraker is the ninth Ober.
lin man to win distinction in tht
higher realms of public life.
Senator Burton and J. Milton Tur-
ner of Missouri, are the only one;
living of that number.
No Oberlin man entered public life
until 1862, when President Lincolr
appointed Professor Peck, of tht
class of I846-then professor II
that college-Minister to Haiti
where he died 1867 after FIVE year
of splendid service.
Professor ]. D. Cox, of the Aclas
of 1851, at the time of his appoint
ment-I869- was professor in tn
Cincinnati Law School, was called t
Grants Cabinet as Secretary of tn
Interior and was, for many year
thereafter, a prominent figure II
Ohio politics. About the same time
I. Milton Turner, of Missouri, a
undergraduate, then zone of the mos
aolished orators of the West, and
man of commanding influence IN nj
section, was appointed, through tn
influence of Senators Carl Schurt
and B. Gratis Brown, of Missouri
Minister to Liberia, at which pos
he remained for eight years, credi
to himself and his alma mater, and al
honor to his government. His stat
papers have never been surpassed,
equalled by any subsequent Minister
This field was too small for HI
splendid abilities, so in 1877 he re
auested to be relieved. He has how
ever, won his greatest distinction
greater because the field was wider
as the Attorney for the Freedmen c
the five civilized tribes of the In
dian Territory-a position ne ha
continuously held for twenty-five
years; receiving the largest fees
any colored man at the Bar-rangin
from $4,000 to $4,000: securing to
his clientele millions in money an
millions of acres of lands-placin
them upon an equal footing, as t
their legal rights to share in tn
lands and moneys of those tribes
which they had, hitherto, been d.
prived by their former masters.
He has successfully fought sever