The Washington bee., 1910-10-29
Public Men And ThinDs

y
Gladstone once said, referring tC
Lord Baconsfeld, that "he possessed
all the elements of greatness, namely
love of race, sympathy and insight.
The one great trouble with many OF
our so-called colored leaders is that
they lack these very essentials to
greatness, but do possess a super
abundance of selhshness.
X
l see ex-Minister Ernest Lyon, OF
Liberia, has been called to the pas
torate of a colOred church in Bal
timore. l never much approved OF
minister becoming an active par
tiCipant in politics to the extent OF
giving up ''the work of Christ" for
political office. And l even more dep
recate the return to the pulpit of a
minister who has held office. | can
not recall a single cOlored minister
who entered actively into the politi-
cal game and held office who did not
get a little of the unwashable stain OF
the world on the hem of his gar
ment5 Just focus the field over and
note how many politically active col
Ored ministers who became part
and parcel of "the great white way,
instead of drawing converts from the
great white way" to the meek and low
ly Nazarine. I have little confidence
in the religion of the minister who
becomes a politician. | have less in
the clerical politician who returns to
the pulpit after drinking the dregs
from the cup of worldly things.
x 4 X
| see Prof. L. B. Moore has got
tangled up in the courts, the result
of a business partnership. | am not
acquainted with all the facts, and have
no desire to be acquainted with them,
as they are none of my concern. /
do, however, as does especially all
other Howard graduates, regret seeing
an educator divide his time between
education and COmmerCialIsm. | may
be a trifle blind and dense, and this
may account for my inability to see
how Prof. Moore can render just and
proper service to Howard University
while at the same time pastOring a
church and engaged in the undertak-
ing business. Prof. Moore, in justice
to himself, ought to swim or float. He
ought to drop some of the ballast he
is carrying to rise. And this is a
friendly opinion, too, for Prof. Moore
IS a clean, high-class, splendid man
of rare ability.
I see that Prof. II. F. Kealing has
been elected president of Quindaro
University, to succeed Register w. T.
Vernon, who really founded the school
and really built it up. Now, there can
be no doubt as to Prof. Kealing' 5
qualifications, but it does seem that
if Bishop Grant, whose protege DR.
Vernon has been, and the other high
dignitaries and functiOnaries of the A
NJ. Z. Church, all of whom were in
strumental and potent factors il
| boosting DR. Vernon into official life
| had the influence to land another
member of their church into the presi
dency of Quindaro, they ought to have
| had sufficient pull to have restored
| DR. Vernon to this school he built up
! 1t looks to the ordinary layman, &C
cepting exparte testimony, that DR.
Vernon had, like Brutus, been stab
| bed in the house of his friends; that the
| Registers friends, instead of his enc
mics, had thrust the iron into him
| Now the question is, how far did Blsh
op Grant and his compeers go for
the Register, and how sincere were
they for him? The part that they
/ played appears, to a novice in churcl
politics like myself, like a game o
poker in which one of the player
stands pat on pair of deuces, be
cause he expects to quit the gam
when the hand is played
| see the Hon. John c. Dancy still
hibernating around Washington, AM
! living in the same residence, with n,
fear of eviction, although he IS NJ
longer on the government pay roll
The inference is that the prOviden
North Carolinian put away snugly an
safely some of the $4,000 which h
drew as Recorder of Deeds. 1t is no
exaggerating overly much, knOwin
the tightwad proclivities of the brain
ex-RecOrder, that he salted ava
about 100000 of the $4,000 drawn
i That's going some, but we all knOV
Dancy is a record-breaker. An
Dancy displayed good old horse sens
at that. He had too much sense
live on the salary of yesterday /
anticipation of the salary of to-moI
, row
4 And speaking about Dancy and tn
fateful and regretful Eek" that no.
stands Ominously and unattractivel
/ before his euphonious name remind
us of the grim political fatality anon
p cOlored office holders. Here we hav
in one summer two dark complexion
t ed, worthy sons of Ham sent uncor
ditionally from the public crib. Th
Black Cabinet" has had two awft
E punctures this summer.
And speaking about the Black Cal
T met, not since Jackson's Kitchen Cal
/ met has a more repulsive title bee
given to a set of men. Jackson
/ Kitchen Cabinet did have some Unfit
enc with the then Chief Magistrat,
but this Black Cabinet, outside {
dining on terrapin and old musty all
had no service to render. The/titl
was a misnomer The alleged Blac
Cabinet simply attitudinized-that
/ all. 1t breakfasted on assumption
{ lunched on pomposity, and dined 0
t conceit