The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1921-07-29
BANKER TURNS REFORMER BECAUSE
GOOD MORALS MAKE GOOD BUSINESS
Interesting Story of How Former Republican Of
hceholder Turns Democrat and Churchnan
and Sets Out to Clean Up Town


TyrreH County and that old time
burg Of freedom where. the ma
tives never knew what prohibi-
ton was like before are finding
it SO uncomfortably dry in the
old town these days that the CEN
ter of the corn-liquor industry on
that side Of the A1bemar1e Sound
has shifted to another County
within a month.
And the instigator and leader
of this great reform wave which
threatens the extinction of the
liquor traffic in Tyrre1l county is
Dack 0. Newberry, former Col
lector of Customs of the port of
Elizabeth City when that office
at Elizabeth City paid a consid-
cradle salary. How D. o. New
berry, formerly leading Repub-
1ica11 politician in northeastern
North Carolina comes to head a
reform movement under Dem
ocratic administration in Tyrre1l
county is an interesting story.
D. o. Newberry is a native of TyrrelI
county. He was born on one of the
poorest farms in that county and had
a hard struggle in his early youth. But
he was always a politician. He ran
for Register of Deeds of Tyrrell county
before he was 21 and just did reach his
majority in time to get his name on the
registration books and vote for himself.
He was elected. That was in 1890 ard
he filled the office until 1S9G
In 1904 he came to the attention Of
the district by running for Congress on
the Republican ticket against John H.
Small He failed to get elected, but he
got himself in line for an appointive
Office and Roosevelt made him Collec-
tor of Customs of the port of Elizabeth
City in 1906. He filed that Office until
1913 when he saw Democratic land
slide coming and got out from under.
But before he got out he persuaded the Z
Treasury Department that the Office of
Collector of Customs at Elizabeth City
was a joke and should be abolished.
When a Democrat succeeded d. o.
Newberry as Collector of Customs here
in 1913 he found the salary of the Office
had been cut from 81 800 to $50 a
year and no one has wanted the Office
since.
How He Turned Democrat X
Quitting Elizabeth City in 1913 Mr.
Newberry located in Norfolk with the
Richmond Cedar Works. He lost inter-
est in politics for a season, buckled
down to hard work and wrecked his
health in six years. In 1919 he went
back to his old home town Columbia,
broken in health and about persuaded
that his days of greatest usefulness had
ended.
But he didn't return to Columbia a
stranger. Columbia had always been
his hobby. In his day he had given Co.
lumbia it's first daily mail service, it's
first express service, a branch of the
q. S. Weather Bureau, a telephone sys-
tenn and bank. He is president of the
Albemarle Telephone & Electric Co. of
Columbia and president of the Mer-
chants & Farmers Bank of that place.
That little bank established in 1903 with
a capital of only $4,000 now has re-
sources of more than $200,000.00 and
in Tyrrell County its presidency is an
asset not to be scoffed at.
Returning to Columbia in 1919 D. o.
Newberry became actively interested in
the affairs of that bank. incidentally heA
became interested in politics and when
he went back into politics in Tyrrell he
went as a Democrat, perfected the
Democratic organization in that county
and put Tyrrell county in the Demo-
cratic column, cleaning out the very last
oficeholder in the county
with the exception of one township
constable. D. o. Newberry will tell you
that he turned Democrat because he
was tired of a Republican party that
pretended to be "lily white" in the
South while coddling the Negro in the
North. He says it is hard for white
man to retain his self respect and stay
IN the Republican party in the South,
all at the same time. Others attribute
MS change of politics to entirely differ
ent motives. But, be that. as it may, he
made Tyrrell a Democratic county and
CONTINUED on Page 81