Norris Wright Cuney

NORRIS WRIGHT CUNEY

R tribune of tbe JBlach p eople

m s; DAU G H T E R

MA UD C U N E Y H A R E

W I T H AN I N T R O DU C T I O N B Y

R J AME S S . C LA KSON For mer ly S u r veyor of C u s toms of the Por tof N ew

T H E CRI SIS PU B LI SH I N G COMPAN Y

2 6 E SE Y ST R E E T N E W V , YO R K CI T Y 1 9 13

NORRIS WRIGHT CUNEY

“ El (tribune of th e JBIach Ipeople

H I S DAU G H T E R

MA U D C U N E Y H A R E

W I T H AN I N T R O DU C T I O N B Y

LAR J AMES S . C KSON For mer ly S u r veyor of C u s toms of th e Por tof N ew Yor k

T H E CRISIS PU B LISH IN G COMPAN Y

2 6 E SE Y ST R E E T N E V , W YO R K CI T Y 1 9 13 C o p yr ig h t, 1913,

B Y M AU D C U N E Y H AR E

E R W O O D R O B T N . ,

PR I N T E R ,

- 202 E a s t N in e ty n in th S tr e et, N e w Y o rk I N T R O DU C T I O N

’ MR Y . C u N E s f i h f ll life , as it is here so a t u y

es portrayed by his devoted daughter, d erves to be told a s much for the inspiration O f the many other gallant and intrepid s ou l s in the future Who will have to achieve success against many f di ﬁculties and discouragements as he did, as in just and deserved honor and tribute to him fo r the good that he so nobly wo n ) to himself and the greater good he so constantly sought

fo o and found r his fell w men . His work was always more for humanity than for himself .

His kindly nature , his boundless heart , his desire always to be of service to the Weak , his

S O f sense of justice and pirit sacriﬁce , his loy alty to friendship an d his high ide a l s as to every man’s duty to his fellow men impressed W everyone ho ever knew him , and impressed most deeply those wh o knew him best and therefore knew something of the full quality and measure O f hi s constant and generous service to man wh kind . Those o knew him from his childhood

a say that in his younger days , his heart was shelter for the weak and needy O f any and every iii iv I NTRODUCT I ON

wh o race ; and all ever came to know him at all, knew that this Spirit constantly increased with his years . 1 876 I knew him from , when I became acquainted with him at the Republican National Convention at Cincinnati— the Convention in

which occurred the famous c ontest betwee n

Blaine and Conkling, a rivalry which divided the party into factions for nearly the whole

generation that followed . It was in the storms a n d contests of that noted Convention , and in those of the compaign preceding for the elec tion of delegates , that were formed the closest and most precious friendships of my political life , and indeed of my whole life . For I , now on reaching the year of grace allotted to man by the Bible have the one testimony to give

s o - that the called world of politics , instead of

- being all self seeking and selfishness, is the o n e field of human action where more true and gen e r o u s men are found, and wherein more true and lasting friendships are formed , and more willing and actual sacrifices made , than in any other field of rivalry and competition among men .

s There are , indeed, many elﬁsh and grasping

S pirits to be found in that world . But there are in it far more men who are good and

wh o generous and patriotic , form the life guard and decide the destiny of the Nation , and who , from th e beginning of the great effort to estab I NTROD U CTI ON lish human freedom on this Continent until

1n s 1r 1n the present day, have been both the p g ' and sustaining power that has guaranteed and con tinued its success . It wa s in that Convention at Cincinn ati

that I came to know Mr . Fessenden of Con i n e c tcu t . . , Mr Hobart of New Jersey, Col Goodloe

of Kentucky, General Dudley and Mr . Michener

1. . C 0 of Indiana, Col Foraker and Conger of

E lkin o f e r Ohio , Senator s West Virginia , S nato

Platt and Mr . Fassett of New York, Senator

n $ uay of Pennsylva ia , Senator Spooner , Henry

C . Payne and Senator Sawyer of Wisconsin,

Mr . Governor Alger of Michigan, . Kerens , Mr M Va n . i Horn and Mr Filley of issour , Cyrus L s eland of Kansa , Senator Thurston and r Chu ch Howe of Nebraska , Mr . De Young and E Judge stee of California , and in the South

General Clayton of Arkansas , Governor War

. L s mouth and Lieut Gov . Pinchback of oui i

ana , Mr . Parsons of Alabama, Mr . Brownlow

of Tennessee and Mr . Cuney of Texas . These men and scores of others who ought to be men tio n e d in any roll call of the faithful and useful

men of the Republican Party in those days , r epresented the Blaine and Conkling and all

e other elem nts in the party . All these leaders

and all others as well, quickly came to know

Mr . Cuney both in the campaigns for the nomi nation o f the Presidentia l candidates and in the vi I NTROD U CT I ON

campaign for their election afterwards , and to recognize the sterling and noble qualities of his manhood and his personality, as well as his

a s rare and useful abilities a political leader . Through out all the years that followed he kept a good name and an unshaken inﬂuence in the higher and more controlling c ouncils of the

Party . In the close friendships that were formed with

ten or twelve of the leaders , all of whom served together at different times as members of the

National Committee , from twelve to ﬁfteen or

Mr twenty years , . Cuney was always highly

r egarded and highly prized by them all . Always trusted and never do ubted by this fellowship

a consisting of Fessenden , Hobart , Goodloe , Cl rk

S o n , Foraker, Conger, Fassett , Payne , Thurston ,

Manley, Dudley, Leland , De Young, Clayton , and Cuney and at different times ﬁve or

ix S . others , Mr Cuney was always accepted as

‘ one of the most dependable allies and most r e

liable councillors , and was always insisted upon as one of those wh o were to attend all the inside Party councils and all the important pub lic and private conferences of the National Com

mitte e , both during the Presidential Campaigns

and in the intervening years . All these gentle men a s well as the other leading members of the Committee early came to know the value of h is s ervice and the Party recognized his honest I NTRODUCTI ON vii

s n r s an d idea s an d ai in er on al ta da d l , g n g p s lik

ing for him as well, all came to have implicit

faith in him . In the Party Councils at Wash

in ton g , too , he would often be taken into private conferences between the President and other high public and Party ofﬁcials an d was always one whose judgment was consulted and

w wa s whose inﬂuence a s recognized . He always accepted and valued as an intimate friend by ll Mr . Blaine through a the years of that great l ’ eader s prominence and popularity . I parti i c p a te d in several interviews of Mr . Cuney with President Harrison and with various members of the cabinet , and he impressed them all by his personal bearing as he had p r evI ou Sly done l “ by his general va ue and ﬁdelity to the Party . President Harrison rendered conspicuous r ecognition and tribute to him , his ability and

a his personal worth and his party rank , by p

o f pointing him collector the Port of Galveston, the federal office of first importan ce in Texas a n d scarcely second to the collectorship at N ew H Orleans in the whole South . is high standing at home— the best test of any man’s worth wa s shown by the fact that nea rly all the lead ing Democratic business men of Galveston and practically of the whole State , united in a peti tion to President Harrison endorsing h im above all other Republicans in the State for this office . His administration of th e office fully justified viii I NTROD U CT I ON

’ the Pr esiden t s high estimate o f his worth a n d ability . The records of the Treasury Depart ment still stand as proof that the office under his direction was managed with equal ability and and fidelity, gained the endorsement of the department as being one of the best managed f o fices in the country . For all time , the superior record he made in that responsible position will stand to his credit and that of his race as being capable of furnishing sufficient a bility and devo tion for the highest public service .

The traits that I admired most in Mr . Cuney , in addition to those which I have already named, were his pervading and dominating personality, which every one could see and feel as soon as

a nd he came to know him , as being among those

‘ wh o had taught th em s el ve s n ot to grasp but to

S give , and always to give more than his hare ; and furthermore and especia lly his pride in h is

I n own race . this latter respect he showed more intelligence and more courageous loyalty than any man of his own race I have ever known , except Frederick Douglass , the greatest of his

a people and one of the gre test of Americans , whom I was also privileged to know intimately and with whose unquestioning friends hip and good will I was also honored . They both realized ,

O a a s do all intelligent men of pen and f ir minds, that the God of Christian people was never capable of being cruel enough to create one race I NTRODUCT I ON ix

of human beings to be inferior to all others, or to be enslaved, oppressed and degraded by another race , just as they knew that no other race of the present or the past , could have endured so many centuries of degradation and slavery to emerge from it with more of remain ing or unextinguished intelligence nor perha ps with as much of patience and with as little

as th is a a ll bitterness of spirit ‘ d rkest of races ’ has done . And just as Mr . Cuney s nature was

w as loyal to his own people , so it loyal to every cause and every person he espoused or to which

w s or whom he a In the least indebted . As much as any man I have ever known , he was true to every cause , every duty, and every friend

m n th em a o . s as any one g all To my per onal, actual knowledge , he could have amassed a for S tune from the large ums of money, actually p r oﬁe r e d him and urged upon him in several of the Presidential campaigns from 1 876 to 1 896 as a reward for his inﬂuence and his control over the Texas delegates to the Republican

National Convention during those years . Mr . b Mark Hanna, who y artiﬁcial means cha nged 1896 the result of the National Convention in , from what it h a d been ordered to be by the instructions electing the delega tes in the States n and the Districts of the Nation , gave his u will ’ ing but all important tribute to Mr . Cuney s loyalty and honesty by naming him to me at I NTROD U CTI ON a dinner table in th e home of Vice - President Hobart in Washington in 1 897 as having been one of the few southern party leaders Wh o could not be swerved by any inducement what ever, to leave the friends with whom he had entered the contest or to desert the candidate for whom he and the delegates he represented had originally declared their preference . This knowledge of the manner in which their father evaded opportunities and temptations so great that not more than one man in the average thousand would have resisted them all, is of more value and a greater source of pride to the faithful daughter who has written this little book now to perpetuate the memory of her father as one of the most useful and devoted men of his race , and to the equally faithful and de voted son whose life is also b eing lived and fashioned in honor to his father and his prin c ip l e s than if he had left them rich and inde

in pendent the treasures of this world . To me the long years of work and service of

Mr . Cuney from the time he became prominent , ’ 70 s ﬁrst in Texas politics in the early , and next and very rapidly in National politics , and his prominent participation in politics until the 1898 time of his death in , the important and actual service he rendered his race in all those years ; and the example he gave his people in

r character, inﬂuence , and work, formed an e a. I NTROD UCTI ON xi a n d example in American history that should be especially prized and guarded by the Negroes

a n d of America , by all the darker races through out the world . Therefore I hope that the Negro Society for Historical Research which

z . is being organi ed by Mr . John E Bruce and other capable men in New York City to gather together all the mater ial still accessible for mak ing a more faithful and complete history of all that has ever been acco mplished in all ﬁelds of endeavor by Negroes in America , is to be pro vide d , as well as all other societies of a similar ’ character, with a great deal of Mr . Cuney s O correspondence , speeches, and ther records of H his work, in those important years . e was always so modest an d reserved that his work was mainly done out of sight and largely with out public record ; and it is due to the race

th e c and to general publi , as much as to him , that his work now be made as fully known $ as possible and preserved in prominent and con s icu ou s p form for the future . I shall gladly do what I can to aid in this . For although his great work and loyal service were of such large value to his country and his race during his life , the example of his life and the true story of his works alike for his own people and for all people , told as his daughter has so lovingly and yet so carefully told it in this book, will render still more service to mankind xii I N TRODUCTI ON by inspiring and strengthening many other in trepid souls who are to rise from among the many millions of the weak and lowly in the future . f ’ It is di ﬁcult for one who knew Mr . Cuney s noble and lovable personal qualities and his rare and loyal political abilities , as intimately as I did, bringing me ﬁnally to have for him the friendship and the affection that generally

br I n are given alone to kinsmen , to g this state ment to a close , or to keep it within the tem

r tu r e a e . p of a formal public utterance To me , with an ancestry running back into the days of the Clarksons in England when all of them

m e were Abolitionists, all n and all races have e always be n alike ; all children of the same God, and every man of whatever race or color depend ing solely on his own merits for affection or

esteem . So with all the close friends and fel low members I had in the Republican National

Committee for nearly twenty years . In common with all the more prominent and active mem

bers of the Committee , I came to have as much

faith in and as warm a regard for Mr . Cuney , — and Perry H . Carson another fearless man and — loyal soul as for any of our fellow workers ; and I am sure that all of them would give their

hearty approval to all I have said of Mr . Cuney

in this article both as to his work and his worth . No man was ever more devoted to a party or

a cause than he was to th e Republican Party . I NTRODUCTI ON xiii

Indeed, it was dearer to him than his own life “ a life which he so often and so willingly risked

in its support and defense . Even after it had in its Convention in 1896 S O unjustly unseated him a n d the other legally elected delegates from

a n d Texas , placed in their seats men never

elected to the places, and after it had abandoned

r its life - long position o f placing human rights

above all property rights and all other rights , and delivered itself over in a sordid surrender to the control of the dominating material inter

a ﬁe ction o r ests of the nation , his deep f it still d . h a remained In the last talk I ever with him , he said he regretted its abandonment of the supreme sentiment of human rights and its

alliance with the sordid interests of the land , as much for its own sake as for the sake of his own people thus abandoned by the party of

n Abraham Lincol . He said that while , with its historic devotion to the rights of all men as a sentiment that appealed to all good hearts in vin and to all men of conscience , it had been cible , it would quickly ﬁnd that now that it had put its dependence on money and the money power , it had lost the faith and the favor of the people and , sooner or later and at no

w a distant date , go the y of the Whig Party, and for the same reasons . u If Mr . C ney had lived to see his own pro p h e cy so grimly and so terribly fulﬁlled in th e xiv I NTROD U CT I ON

sensational and epoch - making political year of 1 912 h , no one would ave mourned over it, and

the national necessity for it, more than he .

If he were living now, I am conﬁdent he would agree with me and with millions of others who used to take as much pride almost in being

Republicans as in being Americans, that the only way left for the once S plendid but now repudiated party ever to return to public c o n ﬁ dence and respect and to rule in the nation

again , is to ﬁnd its own conscience and return to the principles of Lincoln and the rule of the people ; and go back to the ever- supreme duty of creating equal rights and equal ‘ chance in

life for all men , and especially to the full and ﬁnal redemption of Lincoln’s pledge to the

Americans of the colored race , in both their

political and their civil rights . The time is now ripe for justice b e l n g done as fully to the

black race as to the white race . For now many of the better people of the ever implacable and unreasonable South are becoming willing to a d W just this rong, and to eliminate color as a ff a test for the su rage , and to gu rd hereafter the purity and the intelligence of the ballot by some sufﬁcient and yet reasonable test as to the

qualiﬁcations of the voter, by applying it to all

men and all races alike . Meantime it is for v the Negroes, North as well as South , to ha e and to Show more pride in race and more unity

C O N T E N T S

C H A PT E R I NTRO DU C TIO N

I E ARL D AY S 1846—1 8 6 1 . Y , I I T H 1 8 6 1—18 68 . H E Y O U T ,

I I I E RA E P L C S 18 69—18 72 . NT N C INTO O ITI , I V E ARL EA ER H 2— 7 . Y L D S IP 18 7 18 5 ,

V P L C AL C AREER 18 76—18 8 0 . O ITI ,

VI I N B S INES . U S

VI I F R T HE FR . O GING o T O NT

VI I I LDER A E . A M N C U N Y

I $ T T H C H F H . H E I K O F T E IG T

H O M E L FE X . I $ I F R B E . O T ND

‘ ’ $ I I T H E L IL W HITE S . Y

I I I C O LLEC O R O F HE P R O F G ALVE S X . T T O T TO N

$ I V T H L R B . E C O O AR $ V P L A . O ITIC S AG IN

$ VI F H HE ‘L L W H E . IG TING T I Y IT S

VI I L P O R B A LE X . INING U F TT

VI I I T H E F R S D EFEA X . I T T

$ I $ T H N A AL C E 9 . E TIO N O NV NTIO N O F 18 6

T H E L AS D AY S XX. T $ $ I T A R E . H E L S T IT S

N O R R I S W R I G H T C U N E Y

CHAPTER I .

R Y 1846—1 861 A L AY S . E D ,

O R R I S R I G H T U N E Y N W C was of Negro ,

‘ an and Swiss descent . The Negro and Indi i blood came through . his mother, Adel ne Stuart , for whom free papers were executed by Col .

‘ w s Cuney, and who a born in the State of t . H Virginia er mother , Hester Neale S uart, was of Potomac Indian , Caucasian and Negro blood, and belonged as a slave to a family named

n . Neale of Centreville and Alexandria, Virgi ia Our grandmother wa s a woman of medium height and slender ; of olive complexion and

‘ regular features, with s traight black hair and dark eyes . The Caucasian blood of my father came principally from the Swiss family of Cuneys l who were among the early s ett ers of Virginia, 2 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNE Y coming there with the Archinard family from

Switzerland . About the time of the Louisiana h purchase , t ey migrated to the new provinces

and became planters in Rapides Parish . Dr .

Samuel Cuney married Edith Wells, whose O w children were Stephen , sar, Ben, Samuel , ’ Richmond and Philip . Philip s ﬁrst wife was

Charlotte Scott , also of the Wells family . Two members of the family, the granddaughters of

Edith Wells and Dr . Cuney, Jane and Florida , 1 12 over 80 years of age in 9 , still lived on the

old plantation at Sugar Bend, Louisiana . Wh en the political designations originated 1 824 in , my white grandfather , Col . Philip N . wh o wa s Cuney, an ardent politician, followed the Whig division of the Southern Democracy .

These were days of intense party feeling , and for years a feud existed between the two political

parties in the Parish of Rapides on Red River, 1 82 . 7 O Louisiana In , on a sandbar pposite

Natchez, a duel was fought , the principals being

Dr . Maddox, Major Wright and the Blanchards

on one side , the Wells, the Bowies and the

Cuneys on the other . All the parties engaged

were men of wealth and standing . The Wells

and Maddox families remained in the Parish , while the Bowies and Cuneys joined those

Americans who migrated to Texas, the Bowies 182 1842 going in 7 and the Cuneys in . One of s the participants in the Red River ﬁght, Jame R 18 46—18 6 1 3 EA LY DAYS,

de Bowie , of Bowie knife fame , became a voted patriot o f the State of Texas and one of the martyrs of the Alamo .

When Col . Philip Cuney came to Texas with his family, he settled in Waller County, near a Hempstead , on the east side of the Br zos

River . Here , in the heart of the cotton and i melon belt , he mainta ned a large plantation

S and held laves, among whom was my grand mother, mentioned above , Adeline Stuart , who bore him eight children and whom he eventually

n set free . There were extensive areas of cotto under cultivation , while for miles stretched

z ff prairies full of gra ing herds of bu alo , and woods through which roamed wandering Indian

the tribes . At that time Brazos River , stocked

wa s t with ﬁsh and alligator, not open to rade, a wide contrast to the busy stream of to - day with its many steamer ports and thriving harbor at Velasco . Here the Cuney clan became part of that grea t drama by which Texas was made a S lave empire and annexed to the United States by th e Mexican

War . th 12 1846 In e midst of that war, on May , , my “ ” wa s n father born at Sunnyside , the pla tation

R . on the Brazos iver owned by his father, Col

Philip Cuney . He was the fourth of eight

children , all of whom , except two , were born at “ ” d Sunnyside . All of the children resemble 4 NORRI S WRI GH T C U NE Y

r the mothe , except one of the two daughters who was a blonde like her father . Joseph , the ’ second son , had his father s blue eyes and the ’ - mother s jet black hair . My father was the h ’ darkest of the c ildren , with his mother s olive

b . complexion , rown eyes and black hair In 1 853 o f , when father was seven years age , the family moved to Houston and the two older boys were sent to Pittsburgh to attend school . My grandmother wa s an especially active and industrious little woman wh o kept everyone about her busy whenever s h e could ﬁnd a n y thing for them to do . The boys were always

wa s at work around the home , but my father f said to be the most di ﬁcult of the children , and always shirked home work . He never became a “ ” - handy man around the house . What he de lighted in was playing the bass - violin as taught “ him by Henry the ﬁddler . Music of any kind was a rare thing in Houston in those days . The town was the center for country- trade and the “ ” ins tr u little boy Wright , playing his large

wa s ment , often called upon to furnish pleasure to admiring crowds . 1 859 13 In , when father was years of age , he P a . was sent to Pittsburgh , , to join his brothers ,

Nelson and Joseph , at school . The boys attended the Wyle Street School, a colored institution

taught by George B . Vashon . There wa s a ring of bad boys at the school

6 NORR I S WRI GHT CU NEY and s ailing in and about the beautiful p ebble bottomed Allegheny River, and often in later years they would tell us of those days of pleasure . It was intended that the boys should atten d

On 1861 Oberlin College , but as the war came in , they were cut off from the allowance of money from home . CHAPTER I I .

1861—1868 T H E O U T H . Y ,

H E N A r il 15 1 861 W on p , , President Lincoln is

a r sued call for voluntee s , my Uncle , Joseph

Cuney, who had just reached manhood , left Pittsburgh with the 63rd Pennsylvania Vo lu n teers, while father remained at school in Pitts burgh . During the wa r my Uncle J o e had passed a number of times through th e little town of x Centreville in Fairfa County, Virginia . At that time he had no idea of its personal inter

est and importance to him . Later his mother wrote him to go to her birthplace , Centreville ,

H . and ﬁnd her mother, ester Neale Stuart Cen

treville had been so over - run by both Con

federate and Union armies during the war , that

many people had left the place . Hester Stuart

had settled in Alexandria , Virginia, where she

was subsequently found living with relatives . ra My g ndmother, who had not seen her mother

0 1 . for forty years, was deeply re3 ced to ﬁnd her

My great - grandmother ﬁnally died at the a ge

o n of e hundred . 8 NORRI S WRI G H T C U NE Y

Uncle Joe had expected my father to stay

to o at Pittsburgh , but the excitement became m great for him to content hi self with studies . 1 8 63 1 7 In , at the age of , he went to St .

S Louis , thence to Cincinnati , pending many months on the boats of the Mississippi River . While steamboating on the old Grey Eagle he was often at New Orleans . There he met and formed life friendships with young men

wh . o . , as Col James Lewis and Lieut Gov . Pinch

R e c o n s tr u c back, later became prominent in the tion period in the State of Louisiana . At the close of the war father returned to

Texas and settled at Galveston , the sister city of his old home , Houston . He was eager to acquire knowledge and as his education had been interrupted by the unsettled conditions and misfortune of war , he now began a period o f - a self education , studying the best liter ture

n a d reading law . It was not strange that Galveston with her “ O leander - bordered streets and much sounding ” s e a should have attracted him as a home city

Galveston was th e garden spot of Texas . For thirty miles the Gulf of Mexico washed the i island . The deep white sand g rded about by the waves was packed hard and ﬁrm . Breezes fresh from the Gulf min gled with odors of

O leander, roses, and cape jasmine from the city gardens . The great surf broke upon the beach, T H E H 18 6 1—18 6 8 YO UT , 9

fringing the shore with foam . The breakers f o deep blue , growing in strength as they — neared the shore high , one above the other, a the murmur increasing into a roar, l shed and laved the glistening sands with that endless and fascinating sound of the sea for which an exiled native ever yearns .

To - day one must drive far out from the city to see the beach as father saw it forty years ago , for the wooing of Galveston by the sea has been balked by the great sea wall .

The city, terribly stricken twelve years ago by the ﬂood , counted the loss of thousands of lives and untold damage to property . My ’ 86 father s mother , a dear little old lady of years, wa s ill at the time , and she with other rela “ tives wa s . among the lost The sea, where the ” Inﬁnite hath dwelling , is the last resting place — of the household of Nelson Cuney wife , son and mother . 1 8 67 In , shortly after father settled in Gal veston , a yellow fever epidemic of a most viru lentform broke out in the city and the neigh

. d boring towns In Galveston , eighteen hundre f persons died . It was di ficult to find nurses to care ” for the sick because of the fear Of con ta io n g . ff Father , always sensitive to su ering in others, tender - hearted and ever willing to sacrifice him

self, volunteered as nurse . For months he 10 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNE Y

nursed yellow fever patients, both white and G black, in alveston , Brenham, Houston, Nava

ﬁn sota and Hempstead . He ally contracted the disease himself, but rapidly recovered . At this time Uncle Joseph returned to Texas and, with the exception of the daughter Jennie who was sent to Mannheim in Baden, Germany,

W ﬁa n c ée ith Miss Josephine Barbour, the of m ’ Joseph , to attend Mada e Nichol s Institute for

Young Ladies, grandmother with the remainder of the family now made Galveston their home . I I I CHAPTER .

T R AN E N L 1869—1872 E C I T O O I T I C S . N P ,

FAT H E R wa s twenty- one years of age when he ﬁrst heard of those words which James G . Blaine uttered in the House of Representatives “There is no protection you can extend to a man so effective a n d conclusive as the power to protect himself . And in assuring protection to the loyal citizens you assure permanency to T ff the government . h e bestowal of su rage is therefore not merely the discharge of a personal obligation toward those who are enfranchised ; but it is the most far- S ighted provision against s ocial disorder , the surest guarantee of peace, ” prosperity and public justice . From this time ’ h e a d on became one of Mr . Blaine s warmest mir r s e .

Texas having rejected th e 14th amendment with other southern states , was at this time without representation in Congress , and mili tary government was established . Texas and L ouisiana , comprising the Fifth District , were under the command of Gen . Sheridan . I 1860 i s eces n , when Texas was drawn nto l l 12 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY s ion, out of a total assessed property valuation of S laves comprised there being held in the State . Texas now faced the problem of converting this mass of human property into intelligent American citizens . Many Texans refused to accept the fact that the Negro was “free and equal” and stopped at nothing to prevent him from enjoy ing civic and political rights . The Ku Klux Klan and the Democrats o p posed every policy of reconstruction and were determined by force and intimidation to keep the Negro from the polls . In the State election

1 8 69 wa s of , which the twelfth S ince Texas

R e ceased to be a Republic , Edmund J . Davis , 809 publican, received a plurality of votes over

f r . o Andrew J Hamilton . Mr . Davis stood justice to all men and allowed neither intimida t ion nor bribery to change his course . The majority of the whites meant at all costs to

u . a wa s s ppress the Negro vote . Gov D vis de r ide d by the opposition , who declared that he

m - was the candidate of the ilitary, carpet bag gers and Negroes . He enjoyed, however , the support of many of the good men of the State irrespective of party afﬁliation . At the close 1 870 of the year , Texas was restored to the

Union .

Father, young, intensely patriotic , eager for s ervice and possessing unlimited faith in the

14 N ORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

regulations framed by the constitution , and in 1 869 , provision was made to add to the public school fund the pro ceeds of the sale of all — the public lands of the commonwealth a pro vision decl ared to be “entirely unequalled in magnitude and unsurpassed in nobility of spirit ” in the history of the other States of the Union . 1 869 By the constitution of , the legislature was authorized to divide the State into school districts, each of which was to be subject to the supervision of a board of school directors with full control over all the schools, school houses and school funds within their ju r is dic tion . My father became early interested in educa tio n a l matters and believed that the Negro should receive his public education from the general school funds and not from that derived

- 1 7 from the Negro tax payers alone . On July 1 871 , he was appointed one of the School

u n tir Directors for Galveston County, and was ing in his efforts to advance popular education in the State .

About this time , father met and fell in love

D owdie with Adelina , and was married on July 18 1 S ix 5 7 . , Mother was the youngest of sisters , “ ” D owdie known as the handsome girls, and was the daughter of a white planter of Woodville , 1864 s wh o m . Mis , had igrated to Texas in Her mother was a mulatto slave . At the time of her C I P I T I C 1 8 6 9—18 72 1 5 ENTRAN E NTO OL S,

marriage my mother Wa s a girl of only six

teen, and was preparing for the profession of

teaching . She was small in ﬁgure , of fair com

plexion , with large grey eyes and curly black

hair . She was of a most unselﬁsh disposition ,

working incessantly for the poor, active in charitable organiza tions and always in the lead

in matters of social uplift . She was religious without being pious . Always bubbling over

n with fun, her Christianity wa s one of su shine a and cheerfulness . Possessing beautiful,

s S h dramatic oprano voice , e sang publicly whenever her services could beneﬁt some good

’ cause . Having decided on public school teach

Sh e wa s ing as her life work, naturally interested in education al matters and wa s a true help meet to father in his work to better s chool con

i n d tio s in the Sta te . CHAPTER IV

ARLY E ADE R H I P 1872—1 875 E L S , .

T H E campaign of 1 872 was a most interesting one , in that , for the ﬁrst time in the history of the Union, the freedman voted for presidential electors . The Republicans met in Philadelphia and nominated President Grant for a second term . For the ﬁrst time, father was elected a delegate to a National Convention . Among the new issues advanced by the platform, the old

wa s one , vital to the Neg ro , held its place . It declared that “complete liberty and exact $ e equality in the njoyment of all civil , political and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by ” appropriate Federal and State Legislation . Father had n ow been in Government employ 1 1872 for some months . February , , he was appointed Inspector of Customs for the District wh o wa s of Texas . Nathan Patten , appointed C 1869 wa s Collector of ustoms, in the Fall of , a splendid man and a good friend . ’ i wa s From now on , my father s l fe dedicated to the upbuilding of his race . After studying 16

L I P 18 72—18 75 EAR Y LEADERSH , 17

the situation , he became convinced that in the ’ ballot lay the Negro s chance for self- protection and he never once ceased to ﬁght for this end . He worked always for the franchise for all men worthy of the name of citizen . He favored all institutions that taught an appreci ation of State and civic duties and held true manhood the

s men ideal for all race of . In the early development of the Negro in the South, the secret societies were among the most helpful forces . The ﬁrst Masonic Lodge wa s 1833 established in Texas in , before the 1873 R . days of the epublic In , the Negro Masons of Texas organized a Gran d Lodge with four subordinate Lodges located at Galveston ,

Houston , Austin and San Antonio . The Masonic Order based on principles of “ ” a a Liberality, Brotherly Love and Ch rity p pealed to father . He early joined the organiza n 24 1 874 tio and on June , , he was duly elected

- and appointed R . W . Deputy Grand master of the M . W . K . S . G . Lodge for the State of Kansas and jurisdiction on the continent of

North America . The year 1875 marked the 100th since Masonry was revealed to the colored men of this country, and the Prince Hall Lodge held s appropriate demonstrations in Boston , Mas ,

5 1875 . . June 2 , . Father, as P . M . Mason and R W

Deputy Grand- master fo r the State of Kansas 18 N ORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

wa s and jurisdiction, commissioned to assist in

r the proceedings in Boston . The e they protested

' against those who continued to refuse to acknowledge or recognize members of the Negro “ race as Masons, and met also to do all within our power to remove the hateful spirit of caste to the end that equity of justice shall become the supreme and governing principle of th e American people— to make smooth the ways of children and by education to lead them in those paths of knowledge in which shall be found true ” happiness in this world and in that to come .

28 1 870 a 14 1874 From April , to Janu ry , ,

Edmund J . Davis was, by election , again the

Governor of the State of Texas . There were two factions among the Republicans ; the

h . w o . Unionists , supported A J Hamilton, and 1 8 73 . the Regulars . When, In , Mr Davis ran

r e - for election, he received but little support s from the Union Republican and Richard Coke ,

wa s . . the Democratic candidate , elected Mr Davis had been unﬂinching in prosecuting measures

necessary to protect the enfranchised Negro , and while greatly criticised by his opponents because of his afﬁliation with the colore d men of the

S State, the historians admit that he was a incere S public ervant , of good character , personal

honesty and a worthy citizen . Though defeated

in the State election , the Davis faction con

tinn ed tocontrol the party machinery in Texas .

2 0 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

“A s to the apology, I will state that Mr .

Dewees sent for me , asked me into his private office and told me to be seated ; after which he said to me that he had sent for me to see if we could not settle our difficulty without any more fighting . I told him he had been doing the fighting ; that I was acting In self defense He said he had done me an in justice and felt that h e owed me an apology ; that he wa s a man of quick temper and had

acted indiscreetly . I accepted his apology and told him that I myself had a bad temper, but always tried to subordinate it to what was be

coming a gentleman . “ I told him there was no wounded hono r

o n my part , that it was simply tit for tat

between him and me ; that it wa s true I got little the worse of it and the only reas on I did not hurt him was because I could get noth

ing to hurt him with . He smiled and said

it b e yes, it was true he had little the best of cause he wa s where he could get material to

ﬁght with . He then presented me the itemized

bill, whereupon I paid it . I arose to go and he assured me that if we ever had any business

together in the future , that I should ﬁnd him

a straightforward and upright man . There was

a third party present the time this transpired . If I am the aggressor in this matter and have ’ fﬁ gone into the United . States Marshal s o ce E I P 18 72—18 75 1 ARLY LEADERSH ,

and assaulted the chief ofﬁcer in charge , and . there were witnesses present as stated in the said wh article , y am I not arrested and made to pay the penalty for violating the public peace $ No one regrets more than I do that this affair occurred , but having occurred, I feel conscious that I have acted honorably throughout the ff whole a air .

In the State campaign of this Spring, father, 29 then a young man of years, attracted the notice of both parties . The white Radicals of the Hempstead Convention , disgruntled at the holding of a caucus by colored men , declared “it would be a good thing for the Republican

Party, if the Negroes would split and half of D ” “ them would join the emocratic Party . Never ” “ again , they added , will we participate in a

Radica l Convention where Negroes lead . Think i — , t a d of there is Cuney, living in the most va n c e d and wealthiest community of the State

- (Galveston ) , published to his fellow citizens as ” holding high place in our party organization . An in cident which took place in Galveston that Fall proved how little disturbed were the “wealthiest and most advanced” citizens because a m an of Negro blood living among them wa s recognized in the councils of the Republican

- Party . Galveston wa s a growing sea port town , ambitious to develop a harbor second to none

on the Gulf of Mexico . Aware of the possi 2 2 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y bilitie s and interested in her shipping industry, bankers, importers and wholesale merchants agreed to meet at the Cotton Exchange on th e 2oth 1875 day of October, for consultation co with a view to devise and inaugurate , in operation with the municipal authorities, measures to secure dikes or levees around the ” r city . Father wa s among those citizens e quested to meet at the Cotton Exchange .

Though a young man , he was rapidly gaining the conﬁdence and esteem of the thoughtful men of the community . Believing that he would f make an e ﬁcient public servant , the Repub l ic a n s nominated him for Mayor of Galves ton . R . L . Fulton was the Democratic candi date and won the election . In later years , Mr . “ — I n 1875 Fulton stated the city election of ,

I had the satisfaction of defeating Mr . Cuney for the position of Mayor and at the same time of learning of some of his excellent qualities as c a publi man . He has exercised a remarkable

i n inﬂuence on the politics of this city, and variably in the interest of s ound policy and m ” honestgovern en t, C HAPTER V.

O LI T I AL AR E E R 1876—1880 P C C , .

ARLY th e 1876 th e i l i i E in year , S enator a D str ct G comprising the counties of alveston , Brazoria and Matagorda, held a convention to nominate I Le I S a tu r e . F A members of the g or S enator, . Mc C or mick c P . re eived a majority and his nomination was made unanimous, while the w name of N . W . Cuney a s received with acclama “ tion as the nominee for Floater, as was called the Representative Of that part of the people over and above the apportionment . In the election father met with defeat . T h e new Legislature assembled on the 18th of April . The conditions in the State were — still unsettled many evils were complained of, and in order that they might be more easily w a s . corrected , a new constitution drafted

Governor Coke wa s r e - elected and found it n e c es sary in some instances to appeal to military e; L G forc abor troubles broke out in alveston, and a strike owing to a dispute over the question of wages wa s launched . It soon assumed ugly

O n e proportions . of the leaders of the strike , 23 24 NORRI S WRI GH T C U N E Y

Michael Burns, presiding at a general mass

meeting called at the Court House , declared that if matters were n otsettled satisfactorily to the

s l o c o m o trikers, they would destroy trains and tives and thus cause the company greater

loss than the increase of wages asked for . My father sprang to his feet and answered the “ speaker . An onlooker wrote : At the meeting

last evening, Mr . Wright Cuney, a colored man and one of the most intelligent of his race in

the State , gave the men good advice . Mr . Cuney

knows but too well that the poor, deluded colored

wh o men are now on a strike in this city, are but the tools of some designing white men who — have aspirations political and otherwise , and ’ he did not hesitate to tell them so . Mr . Cuney s address was eminently sensible and to the ” point . It was true that the grievances of the strikers were not important enough to demand public sympathy or to cause suffering of the

families depending upon them . The lawless element made it an excuse for street riots ; acts of violence were committed and it became necos sary for Mayor Stone to issue a proclamation threatening to call on the militia to preserve

wa s . public order . Rioting general Father w a s mingling with the crowds on the street , called for and stood amid b o o ts of the rabid

faction , to address the mob . He reminded the crowd that the muttered threats of violence P I I C 1 8 76—188 0 25 OL T AL CAREER,

which he had heard were something that h e

deeply regretted . He said to the colored men that for the past forty- eight hours they had been

parading the streets of the city , creating all

n b d sorts of discord a d stirring up a blood , which had culminated in the shooting affair on

Market Street . The most respectable number the strikers had ever been able to muster did

h u n de d not equal three men , and as there were 1 500 laborers, he asked what that handful of malcontents hoped to accomplish by their tur

bulent demonstrations , except riot and blood

of o wn b in shed , and the destruction their est

r s s te e t . He asked the strikers what they could

do in the prosecution of their disorders, and told — them that there were over seven hundred armed

— s e a n men trained oldi rs in the city, who could n ih il a te them all in a n hour ; and if they could

not , he said, that in the city of Houston there were men under arms who could be brought to this city within two hours to a c

complish that bloody work . He deprecated in the severest terms the follies into which the

colored men had fallen , and said that they were not supported by the white men nor by the full

strength of their own color . He said that every good citizen would be found on the side of the law when the strike was carried to the extent

where collisions would result , and that the strikers would in the end be the s u ﬂfe r er s for 26 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

the foolishness of which they had already been

guilty, in a vain attempt to revolutionize the

industrial interests of the city . He told the

colored men to disperse and go to their homes , and on the morrow to go out and try to get work to do at some price S O they might protect their wives and children from want . ’ r o cl a In conclusion, he read Mayor Stone s p “ w a s mation , and it reported that he , in an eloquent and forcible manner appealed to his race to heed his warning and go peacefully to their homes and stay there . He never for a moment lost control of his temper o r yielded ” the fact that the law must be maintained . The strike was ﬁnally settled with satisfaction to , the men and their employers . Scarcely had the labor situation cleared before

i r I m l n i n there was race d s c a to to contend with . Greenwall as theatrical manager had refused a colored woman , Mary Miller, a desired seat 3 in the theatre . The colored citizens on March

H O n held an indignation meeting denouncing .

Amos Morrill, U . S . District Judge , in the case o f ' Greenwall . Greenwall had been indicted, 500 tried , convicted , and ﬁned $ for violation of the Civil Rights Act . Having no property sub

e ct . j to execution and sale , he was dismissed Judge Morrill was arraigned by the colored people for not ordering Greenwall to remain in the custody of the Sheriff until the ﬁne wa s

28 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

measures of the present administration at Wash

in ton g , in the case of Marshall Purnell who wa s permitte d to make his defense on the charges

wh o preferred against him, by those sought to ﬁ secure his summary removal from of ce . Cuney is making an effort to have himself re established

in the position from which he was removed , and he is strongly backed by many of the best business men of this city who commend his capac ities for the position a n d vouch for h l S charac

ter as a man . In the recent troubles which

th I S s have prevailed in city, Cuney has hown himself to be above the average of his race

a friend of law and public tranquillity, and by the part he bore in restoring order among the

turbulent . Negroes who had given themselves to

riotous measures, he made many friends who have availed themselves of this occasion to say ” a good word in his behalf . The result wa s that Collector Shields was

ordered peremptorily to place him on duty .

Gov . Coke , commenting on the case remarked, “ ” i ' Cuney S a spry sort of a fellow . In June the Republican National Convention f was held at Cincinnati , Ohio, and Ruther ord

w a s . B . Hayes nominated for President Father wa s sent as a delegate from the Fifth Con

r s s io n a l g e District of Texas, and thus had the opportu nity of becoming acquainted with the statesmen who later became his good friends I I 18 76—188 0 29 POL T CAL CAREER,

A H H F llison , Blaine, arrison , obart, essenden,

Platt and the younger man , James S . Clarkson .

n 1876 The Presidential electio of was bitter .

. H Following the inauguration of Pres ayes , the people of the country were more interested in ﬁnancial and industrial issues than they were in the welfare of the colored people of the South . Military rule had been discontinued but the Southland was far from being at peace ’ 45 In Mr . Blaine s speech in the th Congress, respecting the conduct of elections in the “ South , he declared, The colored citizen is most unha ppily situated ; his right of suffrage is but a hollow mockery ; it holds to his ear the word s of promise but break it always to his hope , and he ends only in being made the unwilling instrument of increasing the ’ political strength of that party from which he suffered ever tightening fetters when he wa s made free . He resembles indeed those unhappy captives In the

East who , deprived of their birthright , are compelled to yield their strength to the a ggr a n dizem en t of the monarch from whose tyrannies s they have mo t to fear , and to ﬁght against the power ' from which alone deliverance might be ex

o p o ted . The franchise intended for the shield and defense of the Negro has been turned against him and against his friends and has vastly increased the power of those from whom 3 0 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNE Y

he has nothing to hope and everything to ” dread . The Federal Government had proved itself powerless to conquer the unconquered prejudice

of the South . The colored man had , in many ff cases, the su rage absolutely denied or he was threatened by mobs ; frauds were perpetrated Innocent men were murdered for daring to be

Republicans . In Texas, a colored voter having declared his intention of deserting the Union

s Labor Party and supporting the Republican , wa s taken from his home by a masked band of

men and shot . In New Orleans a Baptist clergy man was driven from his home and family by an armed mob for an offense no greater than that of helping to organize a Republican meet

ing . There now began a large exodus of the

colored population of the South . Conventions

“ of colored men were called to consider the con dition of the race and to discuss the emigra

a s tion movement . There w discouragement and

discontent everywhere . President Lincoln had been a ﬁrm believer in

African colonization . Indeed, in December of 1 8 61 , he had recommended a provision for col o n izin S g the laves set free by war, but nothing came of the suggestion . Earnest men were thoughtfully weighing the advantages and dis f advantages o colonization .

h e Father , when asked if thought the colored P I I C 18 76—188 0 OL T AL CAREER, 1

people of the South would be beneﬁted by such “ : N O a movement , replied , I cannot see wherein they would gain anything . They are so thor oughly identiﬁed with the perpetuity of our

American institutions, that it seems to me to be rather late for them now to seek homes in m a new country with the custo s, government and people of which they are thoroughly unac

u a in te d q . There is much more glory , honor and gain for the colored man here in the land of his

S birth , and here he hould stay and ﬁght his it wa . y to the front As a race , rests with him to carve out his own character, which will de mand the p r O p e r recognition here as soon as elsewhere . When asked i f he thought the condition of the colored people in his own section warranted “ : them in making a change, he answered No , I do not think that the colored people of this Section would be justiﬁed in emigrating in —a body. Individually , some of them might per chance , improve their condition by going else s where , ju t as other people do , and this they will continue to do , just as other people . Negroes are human beings and should be considered from that standpoint , if people would under s stand them as a race . In their action and manner of life , they are prompted by very much the same motives actuating others of the ” human family . 3 2 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNE Y

In the matter of education the outlook was

growing brighter for the colored youth in Texas . In readjusting relations to the new conditions

succeeding the days of Reconstruction, a more liberal provision was made for the support of 1 878 the public schools . In , by an act of the

N or State Legislature , the Prairie View State mal and Industrial Institute for colored youth

wa was founded . The location s that of the

wa s old plantation of Col . Kirby, which on a

r a i r I e n ot beautiful p near Hempstead , many miles from the birthplace of my father , in

Waller County . What was once the dwelling house of the master of the plantation is now the Chemical Laboratory and Lecture Room .

“ S 1 885 1030 r Here ince , students have eceived their training for teachers . The growth of the l h s . school a been very rapid . Prof . E . L B ack wh o S hear, has held the position for fourteen

is . . . years, the Superintendent Mr Wade C

R ollins is the efﬁcient Secretary a n d Treasurer .

Mr . Rollins states “ Your f ather wa s inter ested in this school and w a s instrumental in many ways in having a large number of young colored men attend it , among them myself . He secured for me a s cholarship here for three successive years , and whatever of success I may have ; attained to this point , is in large measure due to his kindness ” o and foresight . The Institution is supp rted I I E 18 76—1 8 8 0 3 3 POL T CAL CARE R, by annual appropriations made by the Common wealth and by income from tuition fees .

At this time , in the public schools of Galve ston , the trustees were willing to employ white teach ers for public schools s hould not enough colored teachers be obtained . An advertisement appear ing for applicants for positions in the free 1 7 1 881 “ schools Dec . , , read white and colored ff applicants will be examined in di erent rooms . The ﬁrst innovation was in the fall when they held the examinations at different times and — places a step backward from former procedure . Father joined other colored citizens in protest i n g against S O unnecessary an arrangement . The authorities were disposed to treat the colored teachers and pupils fairly , but segregation con tin u e s to be practised in the public schools .

A S one of the School Directors , father was interested in having school sessions lengthened .

By reforms in the school law , under the admin i r io n s t a t of Gov . Roberts a larger number of children were taught and for a longer school term than ever before . Gov . Roberts had been

- r e 1 880 . elected in , with Joseph D Sayers as

- Lieutenant Governor . Mr . Sayers , though a

D em Oc r a t , proved to be a man of broad sym

c pathi s and a true , good friend to the colored people . u 1 880 In J ne , , father was sent as a delegate to the Republican National Convention which 3 4 NORRI S WRI GHT CU NEY

met in Chicago . The Convention was memorable in political annals for its large number of able

men and brilliant display of oratory . Benjamin

Harrison of Indiana , C . A . Boutelle of Maine ,

. . M George F Hoar and H C . Lodge of aSs a ch u

s etts, Matthew $ uay of Pennsylvania, James

S . Clarkson of Iowa and the colored Senator

from Mississippi , Blanche K . Bruce , were some

of the eminent public men in attendance . There had been an inclination for the renomination

n th u . e of Gen Grant, but there was also warm

s ia s m AS 3 6th for Blaine . the ballot opened, delegations which had been voting for Blaine

h d wh o o and S erman change to Garﬁeld, repr s ented a liberal and p r o gr e S SI ve Republicanism .

Father voted 35 times for James G . Blaine .

James A . G arﬁeld and Chester A . Arthur re c eive d the nominations . The Collector of Customs for the port of Gal

wa s 1 veston now Col . A . G . Malloy . On June , 1 881 , father received his appointment as Chief

Inspector of Customs . Desiring to enter more

fully into the service of the people , he became a candidate for Alderman in the city campaign in March and wa s elected Alderman of the 12th — — ward a ward composed of 1 801 persons 1120 6 1 1 8th white and 8 colored . On the of the month he was removed from his position as Chief d I nspector of Customs, on account of being electe

3 6 NORR I S WR I G H T C U N E Y declaring Grant’s order to be still in force and that the two ofﬁces could not be held at the same time ; but he was given the right of choos in f g which one of the o ﬁces he would resign .

wa s h There wit out doubt , duplicity on the part m f of the Custo House o ficials . Whatever the merits or demerits of the case he was asked to choose between the two positions . Having decided to be independent of Govern f ment o fice , father stated he would prefer going into business which would not interfere with his holding the position of Alderman , for he had contested for the latter O f fice with the belief that he could fill the position honorably and be

h e of service to his constituents . Thus he left t Customs S e r vI c e which he was to r e - enter eight

f . years later, as the chief o ﬁcial at Galveston Among the comments on his resignation was “ the following : It is bu t fair to add that

Mr . Cuney is a colored man of unusual mental culture and enjoys the esteem and conﬁdence im of a l l wh o know h . He is a Republican from principle and n o t even the most extreme O ppo nent of civil rights has ever attributed to him any bu t the pu r est and most honorable actions in politics and private life .

Father soon had occasion to visit Austin . Upon his return he was interrogated as to his interest in h aving th e Legislature establish a

f b . school for dea , dumb , and lind colored youth LI I C C 18 76—18 8 0 7 PO T AL AREER,

: ll m t He replied It is a a istake . I wen to

Austin solely on private business . I discussed the school matter with a few legislators while

S there, it is true, but I even refused to ign a petition to establish such an Asylum . Had the me morial been drawn to read that the State should make provision for all her unfortunates ,

S I certainly hould have endorsed it , but I do not seek special legislation for the Negro . ‘Under the constitution of our common country he is taxed the same as other men and the unfortunate of the race are entitled to. the same consideration . At present the only two public institutions open to him are the penitentiary and the lun atic asy f . o r lum The asylums the blind, deaf and dumb , the Agricultural and Mechanical College and the

State University are all closed to him . It is a sad travesty upon humanity and justice that the State of Texas accepted gifts of public lands for the endowment of an Agricultural an d Mechanical College for the beneﬁt of the whole people , and bars a large proportion of her pop u l a tio n because they were born black ; that the

- tax collectors make no discriminations , yet when a man is born deaf and dumb or a man is

stricken with blindness , a black skin Is an insurmountable barrier to that care and atten ” tion which should be accorded by right . $ ues “ tio n e d as to Social Equality , he replied , No ,

I do not ask for social equ ality for my race . 3 8 NORRI S WRI GHT C UNE Y

m n o l a w That is a atter can touch . Men asso i ciate w th men they ﬁnd congenial, bu t in mat ters of education and State charity there cer

ta in l S y hould be no distinction . There is a c lause in o u r State constitution separating the

schools . This brands the colored ra ce as an 1 inferior one . think itwould be better to leave

s uch matters to the local school trustees . The approach o f the State elections o f 1 882

caused less excitementthan u sual ; it was an o ﬁ

n o n year politically, ational interests being a t i . W n stake hen , July , the Republican County

l wh o Convention assemb ed, father , was a member

of the Executive Committee , and his political

rival, Colonel A . G . Malloy , were selected among others a s delegates to the State Convention

w a s to on n hich w meet at Austin . At the C ve

tion , father was elected temporary chairman . The Co nvention decided to support at the fﬁ approaching election of the State o cers, can dida tes who come before the people for suffrage i ” as ndependents . A committee of which father “ was chairman , was named to confer with other an ti - Bourbon organizations and ele ments of o p position and reach a conclusion as to whom among Independent candidates the Republicans

en te r e d th e n should support . Father campaig in October as a candidate for the legislature , 66th for the District, composed of the counties P I I 18 76 - 18 8 0 OL T CAL CAREER, 39

a n of Galveston, Brazoria, Matagorda d Whar ton , with the following platform “ ’ E d ea tzo u u r u . O school term is too short . I am an advocate for the extension of our School

e u r term to nin months during the year . O I scholastic age must be changed . favor the e x t n s on 7 18 e of our scholastic age from to years . In order to do this I am in f avor of an amend ment to the Constitution , levying speciﬁc tax b for the support of pu lic education . I am in favor of the s ale of the Public S chool Lands to a ctual settlers only . “ r L w J u y a s . I am in favor of a revision of the

Jury Laws , to the end that jurors must be drawn from the body of the people . “ P bli R a ds u c o . I am in favor of the repeal

La w of the present Road , and the enactment of another by which the short term convict labor of the State may be used for such purposes, and the conﬁnement to labor within the walls of the penitentiary of all others , in order that they may not be brought in competition with the industry of the people . “ H o s e R e u s of efu g . I am in favor of the erection by the State of suitable houses of R fii ff e ge for juvenile o enders , in order that they

e may not as now, b consigned to the p enitentiary and compelled to associate with h ardened criminals . “

v . a ll c o f I shall isit the ounties the District, 40 N OR R I S WRI GH T CUNE Y

and will be pleased to divide time with my o p p on en ts in discussing before the people these ” issues .

: One comment read The candidate , N . W .

Cuney, is a man of excellent character and com petent ability, large political experience and varied and careful observation . Few men have deeper convictions and still fewer have his capacity for their forcible expression either in public or private life . His long experience in the customs has given him ample knowledge of commerce and general business , while his knowl ” o f edge men is exceptionally great . The “ Democratic press noted that N . W . Cuney, the Independent candidate for the Legislature from 66th the District, is a colored man , but we must confes s that his platform is a much better one than those put forward by white candidates .

h a s a ckn owl One may not like Cuney, but one to ” edge that his platform is excellent .

In the election father met with defeat . The movement for a chan ge of the law relating to convict labor w a s one in which father was very much in earnest . At his suggestion , meetings were called and resoluti ons adopted condemning the practice of hiring out convicts as farm

u n n e c laborers for small pay, thus prolonging

s s a r il n o n e y their term of punishment, heed bei g taken by the authorities of the wrongs inﬂicted upon the law- breakers while working out a P I I C 1 8 76—18 8 0 4 1 OL T AL CAREER,

pecuniary ﬁne on the farm . He declared that the convict law of the State in Its practical working was a direct violation of the consti tu tion of the United States . It was decided to present a petition to the Legislature praying l aw for a repeal of the , and father was among the citizens appointed to memorialize the

Legislature on the subject . CHAPTER VI .

I N U S I N E S B S .

DE SI R O U S of becoming independent of public O fﬁ 1 883 e ce , father, early in the year of , ntered

s the bu iness of stevedoring , employing about 500 colored men to load and unload vessels passing through the port of Galveston . Hereto fore only white longshoremen had been employed

e a d th e on the wharv s, and they h a monopoly of s teamship work There was strong prejudice against Negro labor on the wharves and father , s S eeing the injustice of the ituation , in spite of the strongest opposition and under most trying circumstances organized the men into an as H 2500 sociation of longshoremen . e purchased $ worth of tools and secured work on the Morgan w 4 6 harf, paying the longshoremen $ to $ per day . It was not unexpected that any movement by which Negro labor would divide so lucrative an employment with the whites , should meet with ﬁerce opposition But in spite of the hostility toward his undertaking, father l triumphed . He had secured laborers not on y 42

NORRI S WR I GH T CUNE Y

After working for some time on the Morgan

' ‘ wharves , father attempted to secure contracts

h e on t New York dock . This work was done ’ altogether by whites . Not long after father s attempt , the white longshoremen launched a strike against the Mallory Steamship Comp a ny . Captain Sawyer of the Mallory Line called father in consultation with a view to engaging colored labor . Father promised to furnish the workmen , but stipulated that before doing so ,

' he must have a guarantee that his men would not be the catspaws to pull the chestnuts out ” of the ﬁre . The condition was that the colored men would go to work, but must be retained on good behavior, and that in the future they were to have an equal showing with the white laborers . This promise was given and a rate of wages equal to that enforced on the Morgan wharf agreed upon . ’ 10 The following morning, o clock, 1 of the colored cotton s c r ewm en went to work dis ch a r g

ta te T ex a s ing the steamship S of , protected by a squad of police under Sergeant Connolly . The strikers were present , but they made no move to molest the men . Of course , the feeling was bitter against my father— the ﬁercest invectives were hurled against h im and his life threatened .

Always calm and cool in the face of danger, he

continued with his brave workmen, his business

on the steamship . Before the week ended, I N B USI NESS 45

on e father came home afternoon and , after greeting mother who was anxious and troubled, told her to take us (my baby brother Lloyd and myself) over to our Uncle Joseph Cuney’s house and stay that night , for it was rumored in the town that a mob meant to visit our home a n d have his life . My mother ﬂatly refused to leave the house . Putting my brother and me to bed, she took her vigil at a back window .

Friends, a dozen or more , well armed gathered quietly at dark in the living room and dining room, prepared to stay with father throughout

I the night and g ve him their protection .

In front of the house and across the street ,

- e hidden among the salt cedars on the sid walks , — were longshoremen determined men , prepared

s S to ﬁght to the la t, hould the mob appear to lynch the man who wa s their leader and friend . Father begged mother to retire for rest but she was fearful that the mob might come from the

- back, through the alley way and creep upon the

Sh e men unawares, so all night long sat at one of the windows at the back of the house, watch ing and fearing . It wa s not until da yB r eak that it was learned that a number of the men had stationed them — selves a t both entrances to the back- way they had taken every precaution not to be surprised by the mob —that no harm should come to the

h o i i n w o o s to . man bravely faced all ( p for them 46 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

’ h Father s keen sense of right , his loyalty to t e best interests of his race , the utter fearlessness which marked his conduct in this bitter contest wa s not unappreciated by the equally fearless

wh o men followed him . In order to be prepared to meet any ofﬁcers of the l a w who might come upon them and try to disperse them, the men had brought with them their guitars and other stringed instruments, that they might claim a “serenade” as an excuse for their loitering in such numbers before our home . The feeling was so intense that a number of

wh o white citizens of importance, had been d fairly disposed toward the colore workmen , had also been threatened$ They were of that group of splendid men of Whom Galve ston has always ‘ a n boasted . Their sympathy aroused such ta go n is m that they were compelled to have f watchmen and o ﬁcers protect their homes . But ni e M the anxious ght pass d safely . y baby brother and I could not understand our danger ; for mother, the night had been a hard and try ing one; But it had been made bearable by the unpurchased watchfulness of that group of de voted men wh o stood by father in this grave crisis . For a number of days there were demon

r a ion s s t t of mob spirit , but it can be said to the

’ credit of Galveston that law prevailed . The strikers ﬁnally listened to reason , and the follow “ — c a itu ing report wa s published, Articles of p Ll oyd G a r r i s on C u n e y

I N B USI NESS 47 lation have been drawn up between the white strikers and the colored laborers who have been employed by the Mallory line to work in their

n places on the New York dock . The propositio from the committee representing the white

a I S l borers , that there shall be a division of the l work, with white and co ored laborers working week in and week out upon the basis of two steamers to the week . The committee represent in g the colored s cr ewm en have met this proposi tion with a response that they believe in an equal division of labor among all classes, and that no one class of labor should be employe d to th e ex

t e n lusion or detriment of another . While they e ter ta in these views , they do not consider that it is within their province or within the province of

a any labor element to dict te to Captain Sawyer,

” agent of the Mallory line , whom he shall employ, or map out for him any division of labor . They refer the whole matter to Captain Sawyer, and t agree to abide by his decision . The repor of the colored men S hows upon its face the result

w a s of wise counsel . This report submitted back to the white laborers yesterday, and will go to ” - Captain Sawyer to day . The result was that father’s ﬁrst agreement with the Mallory line

- da was adhered to , and until to y colored labor is employed on the Ma llory wharves at Galves ton . CHAPTER VII .

O R GI N G T O T H E R O N T 1883—1884 F F , .

AT 1883 ff the close of the year , civic a airs in Galveston became badly managed by the domi

o f nation rings . The better element of the city rebelled and decided to put forward a ticket presenting conscientious public men whose ex er tion s they knew would be in the interest of good government . Father was persuaded to accept once more the nomination for alderman 1 2 4 1885 from the th ward for the years 1 88 and .

Immediately opposition faced him, based on his conduct in the late strike . Flaming circulars and articles addressed “To the People” were e e print d . All bore an app al to the prejudice of

- the narrow minded and ignorant voter . One article read “A very serious question is now before you one involving the support of many white men

e and white families . R . L . Fulton, a candidat for Mayor , was a warm supporter of N . W .

Cuney in a late contest . Not only Fulton but

' O f many of the present Board Aldermen , were r e backers of N . W . Cuney in h is attempt to

‘ 48

50 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

breaking the ring and the commercial and

political interests were protected . 20th On the day of March , a special meeting of the City Council was called “to deﬁne the u ” f nctions of committees . This was occasioned by a disagreement between the members of the H Committee on ospital and Health . D . Fahey,

A . J . Musgrove and my father constituted this

Committee . The press had already learned of their difference and articles had appeared under “ the caption Aldermanic wrangle . Mr . Mus

o f grove , chairman the Committee , reported to the Galveston “Daily News” that the difﬁculty had arisen over the selection of an overseer o f drays for the department of hospitals and

health . He stated that the morning after the Mayor had announced his Committees to the

Council, he met Mr . Fahey on Mechanic Street, and that the latter said to him— “You and ’ I are together on this committee ; now let s ig e ‘ ’ ” nor this nigger and run it ourselves, and ” e dis that he replied, All right . Th y then “ cussed the naming of an overseer . This under ”

r . standing between M . Musgrove and Mr Fahey

led to a misunderstanding with my father, and the Mayor called a s pecial meeting to s ettle f the di ﬁculty . 22d Two days later, on March , father ex plained his attitude in an open letter to the “ “ Galveston News That the people may be I T O T H E F 1883—18 84 FORG NG RONT, thoroughly in formed of the question involved ‘ ’ “ in an aldermanic wrangle , he said, I ask the use of your columns to give them the true s tatus of that part of our municipal affairs out o f which the wrangle grew— caused in my

i o f opin on, by a careless disregard and want appreciation of political “duties on the part of the great mass of that element of our citizen

s f ship which neither eeks nor wants o ﬁce , but which has a vital interest in a proper and economic administration of the city govern

n ot ment . It does become intelligent citizens $ to grow about bad government , when they show such a total want of patriotic appreciation of l repub ican institutions , as to give themselves no concern about seeing to it that they have good government . If our government is bad , I I which believe goes without saying , then

wh o ask is responsible, the men who admin is ter e d wh o it , or the men allowed bad men to run it $ This people can not have good govern ment unless they deserve it , and they do not deserve it unless they make an honest effort

by a faithful discharge of their public duties , to have it . If the city of Galveston were a private corporation and its citizens all stock

holders , having their money invested , they would all be looking out for dividends and they would see to it that the directors whom 52 NORR I S WRI GHT CUNEY they elected were men wh o would so conduct

its business as to bring forth the dividend . “ The municipality of Galveston is a politica l corporation and every citizen is a stock- holder to the extent of his vote and the dividend this people ought to demand from those who are en

o f trusted with the conduct their business , is an honest and economical administration of govern

n ment , courage in the assessment a d collection of

an the revenues, and honest and faithful ex

en ditu r e V p , with a iew to giving as many public improvements as possible after paying the necessary running expenses— a divorcement of l the executive from the egislative branch , that each branch may more properly discharge its duties , thereby enabling the p eople to locate f o ﬁcial responsibility . “The real issue involved in this wrangle is whether the chairman of a committee of the city council shall be allowed to use his will and

en pleasure in contracting obligations , and g e r a lly to run the committee and the business i n its hands to su it his gracious will a n d t pleasure , or whether the majori y of the com mitte e shall direct how that portion of the public business referred to them shall be con ducted . The position assumed by the chairman of the committee on hospitals and health is so abs urd that no man who possesses any knowl I T O T H E T 18 8 3 —1 8 8 4 5 3 FORG NG FRON , edge of republican institutions or parliamentary propriety would attempt to discuss it . “The theory and practice of our government is that the majority and not the minority shall I rule . am clearly of the opinion that there is nothing in the charter nor in the ordinances giving committees power to employ men on what is generally known as corporatio n work . The engineer is the proper official to employ and discharge men in this department of the city government . With a view to having the duties and powers of the various committees defined, I , at the regular meeting of the city 1 5 1 883 council held Oct . th , , introduced and had referred to the committee on ordinances a resolution instructing that committee to r e p ort a n ordinance defining the duties and pow I ers of all committees . hope this wrangle will be the means of straightening things out . “ When the chairman of the committee on hospital and health assumed the right to run the committee , the thought suggested itself to ‘ ’ Z° me , What are we here for I have no de f sire to wrangle , but my duty as an o ficial trus tee of the interest of this people is plain to me , and if an honest ambition to discharge my duty produces wrangling , then let those wh o attempt to exercise unlawful authority ” take the responsibility .

The year of 1884; was essentially one of poli 54 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

tics . In the State campaign of this year, the l Repub icans desired to support Hon . George

. wa o W Jones for governor . There s some p position to Mr . Jones, many being in favor of a straight ticket, but the real leaders of the party were in favor of him because it wa s believed that with him at the head of the ticket , there would be a chance of winning . There were extensive defections in the Democratic strongholds of the northwest portion of the state and it was possible for the majority to be dangerously reduced . The day before the convention convened at Houston a “ telegram was received from Col . Thomas P . Ochiltree declining to be a candidate for r e - election to

Congress . Col . Ochiltree wa s one of the pic tu r e s u e q ﬁgures in the state , as well known and as popular in New York as in Texas . He has facetiously been termed a compound of Beacons

ﬁe l ff d . , Sheridan and Falsta Noted for his

e f good fellowship , he nevertheless relaxed no fort to subserve the interest of his common wealth . His refusal to be again a candidate from the 7th Congressional district was received with regret . The bill for the deepening of Galveston har

r bo wa s now before Congress . Friends of the measure , which was of all absorbing interest ’ O ch iltr e e s in Galveston , believed that Col . con tin u a n c e in ofﬁce was essential to the succes s I T O T H E 18 8 3—18 4 FORG NG FRONT, 8 55

. R H of the bill The epublicans nominated on .

n on George B . Re tfro for Congress . No e supposed the opposition to Democracy would th e determine the question of representation , but man most favorable to deep water and the most efﬁcient in aiding to secure it was th e one the independent voters of Galveston County

meant to support . The Republican C ounty Convention which

s 3 d th e as embled April , to elect delegates to

f o r State Convention , proved a signal victory father and his followers over the Ma lloy fac

tion . Failing to receive recognition as dele e im gates , the opposing faction att mpted to

r pede the work of the convention , but fathe

was master of the situation . Contesting delega

tions were sent to Fort Worth with Gen . Mal

loy at the head . The local papers commented, It is generally thought that owing to its ff feebleness , it is the last expiring e ort on the part of ‘ the Malloy faction for party control

in this county . The war has waged furiously s for many years , and the many political scalp ’ dangling from Mr . Cuney s belt proclaim the

completeness of his victory . The ﬁght was carried to the convention which met the ﬁrst

of. May in Fort Worth . Gen . Malloy was de feated and in an interview attributed his de feat to the fact that many white Republic a ns

on voted, as they did, for father and the c 56 NORR I S WR I GH T C U N E Y ven tio n recognized the Cuney faction as the regular organization of Galveston County . Forecasting the struggle at the National Con “ ven tion , he added , If Blaine men think the majority of the s uccessful delegation were for

Blaine, they are mistaken . The convention at Fort Worth was called to choose four delegates- a t- large to the Repub lican National Convention which was to meet 3 at Chicago on the d of June . Gen . Malloy had been a government ofﬁcial for many years and H . e a warm friend of Chester A Arthur . fought for a unanimous delegation from

x Te as for Arthur . My father, a strong Blaine

wa s - a t- man, selected delegate large against his protest. Following the convention the press

$ wh o stated, Cuney was the only man won a ’ victory ; but Cuney s complexion precludes him ff from leadership e ectually . The day has not yet arrived when a Negro can be the leader ” of even the Republican party in Texas . When the Texas delegation arrived in Chicago l ear y in June , there were already at the head

a t H quarters the Sherman ouse , Colonel Patton , who had at ﬁrst gone to Washington , and Mr .

Webster Flanagan , straightforward in purpose ,

and almost reckless in speech . Among the

Arthur leaders were Gen . Malloy, Col . De Gress and Edward Burkett . Father was selected member of the National Committee for the

58 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

“” we here for Z The Texas delegation answered the question on the ﬁrst ballot by voting eleven

for Arthur, two for Logan and thirteen for

Blaine . On the last ballot Texas voted nine for

Arthur, sixteen for Blaine and one absent . The

ballot was completed and James G . Blaine , now

in full vigor of all his powers, was nominated

for the presidency . The day before the Texas del egation left for m ho e, father found it necessary to defend him m self from an attack ade upon him . A special “ ” dispatch to the Galveston News, explains the “ “ : 8 - occurrence Chicago , June . Last night there wa s a big sensation in the corridor of the

Sherman House . Bissell, formerly a customs fﬁ o cer at Brazoria, and afterward editor of the “ ” Grand Army Gazette , at Washington , now lives here . While in Texas he had several Repub

lic a n s - arrested for bull dozing in Brazoria, but the cases were dismissed by the United States h commissioner, t ere being no evidence whatever,

and Bissell acknowledged that he was mistaken . Wright Cuney took a prominent part in the

defense of the accused , and when Bissell met Cuney here he s ought several O pportunities to f create a di ﬁculty with him, but the Galveston rep resentative treated him with contempt . Last n ight Bissell with half a dozen Chicago hood lums , sought Mr . Cuney in the Sherman House ,

evidently determined on mischief, and they I T O T H E F 18 83—18 84 59 FORG NG RONT,

— found him to their sorrow . Bissell approached him and endeavored to start trouble, but Mr . e Cun y advised him to go away, turning con

tem tu o u s l p y away from him . As he did so ,

Bissell attempted to strike him with his cane , when Cuney caught him quickly by the arm and thrashed him unmercifully Bissell ﬁnally

called for mercy and sneaked out of the hotel. In ﬁve minutes a ll the Texas delegation were

around Mr . Cuney and it would have been

‘ bad for any hoodlums attempting to interfere . The Galveston representative has proved that

he is able to take his part, not only in politics ,

but otherwise when necessary . All Texans here are unanimously glad at Bissell’s just punish ” ment . A Democrati c journal commented “ ’ N . W . Cuney s encounter in the rotunda of the Sherman House shows he has pluck as well as ” brains . At the close of the convention, father wa s chosen one of a committee of ﬁfty of its f members to notify Mr . Blaine o ﬁcially of his A nomination , and arrived in ugusta , Maine , on 2 June 0 . An editorial from a Democratic journal read A new element will hereafter be top rail in T the exas Republican fence . It is headed by — Wright Cuney of Galveston shrewd, untiring , successful Cuney wh o held thirteen of the Texas

a vote s solid for Bl ine . Malloy, Collector of A Customs at Galveston , headed the rthur thir 6 0 NORR I S WRI GH T C U NE Y

teen . It is said that thi rteen is an unlucky

number . Cuney can a ﬁo r d to laugh at the super ’ s tition , but Malloy can t . It was a fair ﬁght

between factions, ea ch staking everything on the w result , and Cuney and his cro d have won . Outside of the two gangs of Republicans there

s o r could be no ympathy f either side , but Cuney’s plucky must perforce command $ ﬁght

admiration . Verily it is a victory for Cuney . “

: . . The St . Louis Republic (Dem . ) said N W who Cuney of Galveston , spent several days

W . this eek in St Louis, is one of the ablest and most inﬂuential men of African blood in the

South . He is the Texas member of the Repub

lican National Committee , and carried a major ity of the Texas delegation for Blaine in the li last Repub can Convention , although every f custom house , post o ﬁce and federal court build ing in the State wa s a recruiting agency for

Arthur .

o en Father, n his way home from the East, ter e d the Northern part of the State through

Texarkana . There he was questioned by a cor “ respondent of the Gazette , who published the “ following : As the southbound International train rolled into the depot at Texarkana , the eye of the ‘Gazetteer’ fell upon the spare form

wh o of Wright Cuney, is known to several citizens of Galveston , especially to Gen . Malloy . There is nothing in the personal appearance of I T O T H E 18 83—18 8 4 6 1 FORG NG FRONT,

Cuney to indicate the many times the types have had of late to toy with his name in political con n c i n e to . Slender ﬁgure , ﬁve feet, ten ; straight black hair and mustache , black eyes ; high cheek bones ; a complexion more suggestive of Italy’s sunny cli‘me than of any portion of Af ’ rica s darkness ; yet to - day he is the head and front o f the Negro population of Texas . A

- representative man , well informed, courteous , collected and with marked O pinions on state and national politics . It may be possible that he has not modesty, but he well succeeds in as s u m in g that virtue if he has it n ot: No one will detect any desire on his part to unduly push himself forward by other than legitimate means . Mr . Cuney has just returned from hold ing sweet communion with the man from Maine ; having gone there with other delegates to in ‘ Mr form . Blaine of his nomination . We were ’ Mr splendidly entertained in Maine , said . ‘

ou r . Cuney, and visit was made very agreeable Of course you don’t want me to recite the ’ circumstances of o u r visit to Mr . Blaine s home ; ’ the press has already given that in full, and ‘ n : w e R he co tinued Oh , of course epublicans v expect Blaine to be elected , and since my isit to New York I learned sufﬁcient to show me that the Democrats can not carry that state .

They will nominate Cleveland at Chicago . What

$ h n i . do I expect for myself O , oth ng, nothing 6 2 NOR RI S WRI GHT CUNEY

I am only a private citizen and have sought only to do my share in public matters toward my race and party . I am trying to build up my ’ private business and expect to stick to that . ’ Father s reception on his return home wa s a

i n most happy one . It was late the afternoon when he reached home from his long journey, but w e knew we were not to have him long to ’ ourselves . Already before the train s arrival, men friends had come to the house and, taking posses

fo sion of the yard, rapidly made preparations r ’ the night s welcome . At dark, a procession of

- hundreds of torch bearers , headed by a band, “ ” came marching down Avenue L , awaking the streets and avenues with music and cheer .

Father , with a few intimate friends , was called w on the porch , while we sat at the windo s that w e might hear the speeches . After the serenad

- a r e ing and speech making, father gave an p p c i i a tve response .

The Galveston papers, though Democratic , were not remiss in showing pride in the honors bestowed upon their townsman ; quoting the

criticisms from the East , they headed their “ ” — n articles Our own and only N . W . Cu ey . Among many interesting descriptions wa s one from the New York Sunday “Press of De “ c emb er 18 — A d , bright , olive complexione

gentleman with a pleasant , clean cut face and a ’ pair of eyes that look into one s soul ; a well I T O T H E F 18 8 3—18 84 FORG NG RONT, 63

f n made, sel made man , full of ative vigor and the champion of his race in the far southwest ;

n i braw y, active , well read on current top cs and an honor to the Republicans of Texas, N . W .

Cuney is one of the men that the new South , if it ever exists , ought to cling to with clamps of

. G steel He lives down in alveston , Texas and is the Republican member of the National Commit

A n tee from that State . consiste t and thoroughly

u faithful man to his party, he has stood p for its principles in the face of O pposition that in many other States of the South has m ade men — often silent sometimes blind . No Republican is of better repu te in the S tate— n o one is more popul ar even with his white fellow citizens than the gentleman wh o yesterday started back to Texas after being North at the meeting of the ” National Committee . HA R C PTE VIII .

LDE R M AN N E Y A CU .

AR LY 1 85 E in the year 8 , after the defeat of

Blaine , the Galveston city election was held and father for the third time became a candidate ’ for Alderman on the Citizens ticket . When the returns came in, Cuney, who had been duly

. elected, was counted out and C . J . Allen was said to be the successful candidate . Father knew that fraud existed and was determined to enter a contest . He had become a candidate this year representing the twelfth ward and the campaign had been one of close and intense inter est , and the contest a notable one . The apparent irregularities in the returns from the eleventh ward formed the general subject of gossip , and the sentiment prevailed that the election returns had been tampered with , and fraudulent meth ods taken to defeat him . Plans were instituted to contest the returns ; affidavits were taken and a thorough canvass m 309 ade . In the eleventh ward , the vote stood A 21 1 62 for llen and for Cuney, against in the 64

6 6 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY a city hall and market house and for to be invested in street improvements and in the water works . The decision of the Committee caused considerable argument . One stubborn

point reached was the manner of electing. alder men— a matter which father moved to recon sider . It was moved to make six wards in the t city , one alderman to be elec ed from each

i n ward and addition thereto , six aldermen to be elected from the city at large . The question was debated at length . Father favored the mi n o r it y proposition, maintaining in his argument , that by electing the entire body by the vote of the whole city the Virtual disfranchisement of the

T h e minority would be achieved . amendments were ﬁnally passed .

The following year , he represented the city as Alderman - at- large and was placed on two of the most important committees , viz . , the com mitte e on ﬁnance and revenue , and the com mitte e on claims and accounts . This was an era marked by a growing ten deney towards unfairness and humiliation for the colored people . The South , interpreting the law and the constitution according to her own

h ad n ot n e c s ideas of fairness, as yet found it e sary to make new laws in keeping with the m any acts of prejudice and d iscrimination . Particularly were the railroads attempting to n discriminate against their colored passe gers . ALDERMAN CUNE Y 67

The case of Mrs . Morris , who had been forced into a second - class coach while holding a ﬁr s t ’ in class ticket , engrossed father s attention and

r t te e s .

e its Anoth r incident, amusing in some of

s aspect , occurred about the same time and was one which touched him more closely . My uncle Joseph had gone to the depot with mother to

o ff wa s see her to Houston , where she to join

wh o father, was there attending a matter of

ﬁr s - business . The conductor of the tclass coach saw them coming and , knowing them to be r colored , he quickly locked the doo of the coach , as he knew from experience that no argument or force could compel mother to enter a second

s a class car . After locking the door he di p

e a r e d p . It was then nearly train time and the

a coach wa s nearly ﬁlled with passengers . For second , disconcerted , mother looked around and

o : then inn cently turning to Uncle Joseph , said “ Well, Joe , there are people in the coach and I see but one means of entrance and that is the ”

4. . window, so give me your hand as mount And then , as if mounting a horse , she got in the

window and took her seat demurely . It was

now time for the train to leave , so the con

d n uctor hastened forward , gla ced hastily

around , saw only Uncle Joseph and surmising

that his strategy had worked, unlocked the door 6 8 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

and cried with great satisfaction , All aboard . Entering his coach to collect tickets he wa s greatly chagrined and bewildered to see mother s itting there quite contented and with perfect ff e as e and indi erence . I C HAPTER $ .

H I K O F T H E I GH T T H E T C F .

1 886 O N the ﬁrst of December , , in the town of Brenham , three Negroes were taken from the jail and hung . Newspaper reports read “The mob was composed of from twenty to sixty

- men , quiet , sober and well behaved . They came to town on business and their plans had been carefully prepared and they were car ried out ” to the letter . There had been election disturbances in the county for two years previous to the lynching .

At a general election , a number of armed men , masked , entered the election room in the nearby town of Chappel Hill, and without a word of warning shot three colored men wh o were en w gaged in counting the vote , ithout even a fol lowing investigation or arrest . The memory of this outrage caused the colored people to be watchful and r e a dy to defend themselves and their franchise . 475 In the Fall election which followed , legal Republican ballots were seized and destroyed w by armed masked men , hile boxes of returns 69 70 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

were destroyed . Bolton , said to be a prominent

citizen, was among the masked men engaged

in seizing the ballot and was killed .

The Negroes who were lynched, with ﬁve im li others, were charged with having been p c a te d in the murder . The men were released v under bonds . Acting under ad ice of friends , they refused to accept the release . Eight col ored men wh o were present at the time Bolton was killed were arrested by a large force of armed men and kept in custody near Brenham . ’ Immediately afterwards, the Commissioner s Court met and declared the election of all can “ ’ ” did t s a e on the People s ticket . At the same time a cry was raised of Negro insurrection . A telegram wa s sent to the s heriff for the pur

o f t pose get ing him away from the city . Crowds of excited men gathered— mutterings concern

n ing Negro supremacy were heard, and ope threats made . “ The Radicals made incendiary speeches a n d blamed the Republicans for the disturbances , saying they had used whiskey and money to “ s ecure the Negro vote and had favored social ” e quality . Advantage was taken of the death of Bolton to stir up popular prejudice and to foment mob violence , which ﬁnally culminated in the wholesale hanging of the defenseless col ored prisoners . Brenham boasts a ﬁne German population and THE THI CK OF THE FI GHT 1

German citizens compose th e property owners of the county . They were nearly all Republi

- cans and were , as they are to day, peaceably disposed citizens . They condemned the lynch di ing which sgraced their town . One citizen “ stated , these colored men were taken from jail and hung not because they were guilty of crime , but because they knew too much about the crimes of the men who were the instigators of ” the lynching .

At a meeting over which father presided , reso lutions were framed “condemning such acts of

th e a c lawlessness, calling attention to dilatory tion of the Governor during the labor troubles and his promptness in sending troops to quell i m ” imaginary Negro u p r s gs . Father both wrote and spoke against the a c tion of the cowardly mob , which caused him to be the recipient of anonymous letters . One

8 : — w . h of Dec th , read Come up here e ave

ﬁfty men who can clean you up . We know you

and you had better look out . We are more than anxious for the blood of such stirrers - u p of

race prejudice . We would like very well to see- ” you and beg you to come up here and help the cause of your brother murderers . “ (Signed ) R evenge . No action wa s taken by the authorities to apprehend the lynchers but the outrage rankled

in the heart of every colored man in the State . 72 NORRI S WRI GH T C U NEY

Shortly after father received the anonymous

letters, my mother and I passed through Bren

. . wh o ham en route to Austin Father, aecom

a n ie d p us , had telegraphed Brenham friends to

meet him at the train , as it stopped for twenty — minutes at that station his customary way, when traveling , of seeing his political friends . I well remember my mother pleading with him not to go out on the platform for fear he

h r would be harmed . He laughed e fears aside “ ” a n d a , declaring they are all cow rds , swung down from the train steps and talked with his friends until the time for departure .

The following year , father for the ﬁfth time “ was a candidate fo r the city c ouncil on the Citi ’ zens ticket . The Galveston Tribune in an inter view with one o f the leading merchants of Gal “ wa s : veston , told I hear that there is a dis

in position some quarters to scratch Mr . Cuney, but it will not be sufﬁcient to defeat him . “ It is mainly race prejudice , but it is con f ﬁned to a very ew people . The colored people are among us and they are certainly entitled to representation . It is estimated that there are 5000 colored people in Galveston . It is a ’ credit to both races that a man of Mr . Cuney s ability has been so often chosen to represent ' 5000 not alone these people , but the people at large . “ O A short time since , I verheard Captain Jim

74 NOR RI S WRI GH T C U N E Y

willing to sacriﬁce the best interests of the city ” to get even with Fulton . The followers of both Mc Alp in e and Malloy scratched the “Citizens’ ticket in the interest

of their respective candidates . The plan was to sacriﬁce a vote for alderman for a vote for Mayor and to promise a number of votes fo r “ ’ the Citizens ticket , provided they would de

v a li er like number of votes for Malloy . T h Father was the victim of this combine . e McAlp in e managers cast the white vote almost

solidly for his opponent , Allen . They had failed f s to in luence the colored voter . It was suspected that a quiet understanding had been arrived at among the Mc Alp in ites to sacriﬁce Cuney

M n and steps were taken to verify it . e were placed at several polling places to note the

counting . The listeners noted every ticket that Mc Alp in e headed and the names for aldermen

Mc Al in e as they were called off . The p sup porters voted the Citizens’ ticket straight with the one exception , Allen . The Galveston daily papers commented upon ’ my father s defeat with regret . A Houston “

W . Herald editorial read : N . Cuney and the paragrapher of the Galveston Evening

T r ibune should be tied together for some time . The Tribune weeps because Cuney wasn’t elected ” o ver a good white Democrat . “ The reply came : The Tribune paragrapher T H E THI CK O F T H E FI GHT 75 would rather be tied to a brainy colored man ’ than to a ﬂedgling journalist wh o hasn t dis c r e tion enough to keep quiet regarding matters ” of wh ich he absolutely knows nothing .

r The Houston Post , a daily that fought fathe

: for many years , commented They downed th e the Negro politician , Wright Cuney, in

Galveston city election . The good things come in small streaks this year . Again the Galveston paper retorted T h e streak was so small that time that a maj ority of the intelligent people of Galveston failed to see it . Wright Cuney made an excellent alder man and would have been r e - elected had he c onsented to sacriﬁce another (Fulton) to save — himself had he consen ted to use his inﬂuence to induce colored men to sell their votes . Cuney refused to do this and the men wh o made th e

a proposition , carried out their thre t and knifed ul him . Wright Cuney, the Negro politician , wo d rather be right and retain his self- respect than crawl into ofﬁce through treachery and cor ” ruption . A fter the election , father was appointed by

- the newly elected Mayor, Mr . Fulton , and con

ﬁrmed by the city council, as a member of the

Board of Commissioners of Water Works . He s 188 - 1889 7 . erved as commissioner for two years , o f The water works , including the collection w e at r rates, tolls and revenues, were under th e 76 NO R R I S WR I GH T CUNE Y

control and management of the Board of Com

a missioners , while it was also their duty to p ll é n e c es point a ofﬁcers , agents and employ s

sary for the operation of the works . The twentieth l egislature by special act gave Galveston authority to issue in bonds

for the construction of a water works system . “ ” “ Too much praise , it was said , cannot be given B to Messrs . rown , Beers , Crooks and Cuney, for their labor in bringing about such excellent r e l s u ts .

D u ring the anti -prohibition campaign in May

1 887 D - , the allas anti prohibition convention

named my father a s o n e o f the sixty- two mem

o f bers the Executive Committee for the State . He declined to serve giving the reason that he wa s a member o f the National Republican E xecutive Committee , and to accept such a posi tion might be construed as giving the anti prohibitio n movementa political recognition and sanction whic h had so far been avoided on both i s des . The prohibition question was submitted to the people at a time when no general elec

to tion was be held , for the express purpose of giving the voter an opportunity of deciding i “ ” w thout making it a party question . Party l eaders disagreed as to the effect the p r o h ibi tion movement h a d upon the Republican party

i n the State . o Father, when questi ned , replied in a letter

78 NORR I S WR I G H T C U NE Y

ff : the tari , he continued I think it is plain to ff any observer of current politics , that the tari question , in so far as it relates to labor , has placed our Democratic friends in Virginia and Tennessee in the condition of most people when they go to sea . “ Mr . Mills may cry out from the wilderness ‘ ’ that Mr . Randall must go , but he will ﬁnd that the next national platform of his party — will have i n it a double ender upon one end

i ﬁn he w ll d Mr . Randall and his protection h t e . friends , and upon other , Messrs Carlisle ,

Morrison , Madison and himself ; leaving it to a Mr . R ndall and his friends, to say to the manu f a ctu r in g interests that it means protection , and the others to say to the rural and s hipping in ” ter e t i n s fr r a e s s that tmea ee t d . CHAPTER X .

HO M E LI FE .

T H E twelfth ward in Galveston , in which

d w a s we always live , in the East End of the

a city, near the beach . Our house , which was

wa s . modest one , in every sense a home My mother wa s not strong and spent much W time out doors with her ﬂowers . There ere — roses red , pink and white , and the yellow f Marechal Neil ; borders of violets , daf odils and

ch r s an jonquils in the spring, and asters and y th em u m s in the fall, with cape jasmine , well

a n d known in Texas , but now rare precious to me , after years of life in the Northeast .

Back of the house were orange trees, plum a n d pomegranate , the purple fig and mulberry trees, where we used to read perched upon seats among the branches . Mother cared zealously for her flowers until Easter , when the yard , awakened by the spring , would be stripped and the flowers carried to the hospital .

wa s Our home life particularly happy . The three married brothers lived within a radius of

s . s e n three block There were ve cou s ins , and as 79 8 0 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

we we were near the same age , were companion

able and always warm friends . We found much pleasure on the beach and in the surf . Father, who enjoyed surf bathing , went often with us . Christmas a n d New Years were of course our gayest holidays . There was always a gen e r ou s Santa Claus, but father gave his personal gifts on the ﬁrst day of the year . The night

we before , always had a family party enlivened

o f n by the visits intimate friends . Father e joyed reading aloud the poems of the old year ,

th e always closing with Ring out old, ring in ” the new . As midnight approached, we would guess the minute and all troop out doors to

- see the stars shining on the new old world . “ ” Open house was held on New Years Day ,

n - with the reception for the grow ups . Christmas with the children ’s party and the

- candle lighted tree , always brought us books

r galore . Our ﬁ st introduction to New England “ wa s through a treasured Christmas book— A ” a F mily Flight Around Home , by Edward

Everett Hale and his sister .

Father cared but little for current ﬁction .

He read deeply , preferring early Hebrew, Greek

w a s and Roman history . He fond of the classics, and in poetry, enjoyed Byron , perhaps t d next to Shakespeare . He of en read alou to us, and we liked to listen , although there were many things which we could not unders tand .

8 2 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

wa s not soured . He met every argument smil “ in l a n d : g y repeated the phrase Forgive them , ” they know not what they do . He h a d a hatred o f form and ceremony and was impatient with creed and dogma . While d he belonge to no church, he had the heart and s l ou of a Christian, and was a follower of the l Low y Nazarene . The term “Nigger was hateful in the extreme to father and was never used in our home . Upon o n e we occasion , when attended the theatre in — Boston to see the K en da ll s J (h e never entered a theatre in the South) —father was incensed at ’ o f Mr . Kendall s free use the word Nigger on l the stage , and both the p ay and the English a ctor were lowered in his estimation .

- Our home was a music loving one . Mother ’ a r e c ia played the piano and sang . Father s p p

- tion wa s not that o f the ultra modern school .

He liked the old songs of Ireland, martial strains and melodies from the old Italian operas . The correction o f our childish faults lay h ’ c ieﬂy in mother s hands, for father could not withstand tears or pleadings . However , he taught us self- control and always cautioned my “ brother and me , to Do as you please , but please ” to do right . He was particularly sensitive and i wa s tender in his affections . No w sh of mine

n r iﬁe d ever left u g a t , and nothing would put him in a more furious rage than any question of HOM E LI FE 3

my ill treatment . It was so in later years . He remained my worshipping and worshipped father .

Little time did he give to pleasure , for life took a strong hold on him . He continually shortened his sleeping hours in order to have

— a n more time for his work unfortunate habit , for he early suffered from insomnia ; a condi tion due , no doubt , to overwork, and his nerv ous desire to lengthen his working day . Aside from his private business , in his work for better racial conditions , the demands on his time were “ ” enormous . He was no holiday politician and , imperious and impetuous as he was in action , he fought his battles with sincerity and earnest ness . ’ wa s At three o clock father usually at home , unless detained on one Of the ships that the longshore men might be loading far out in the harbor . The close of the dinner hour was one f o . of the happiest periods the day Father, sip n pi g his claret , his only dinner wine , followed by the inevitable cigar— h e smoked incessantly — would in these moments of leisure , talk of the world happenings of the day, or engage in dis c u s s io n with mother over some book they were reading . I remember particularly their talk of ’ Mrs . Ward s Robert Elsmere . CHAPTER XI .

O R T E N D F B .

O N E 1888 afternoon in the late Fall of , father

was not at home at the expected time and mother ,

thinking he was detained by business, decided u not to delay the dinner ho r . We were in the

dining room when father came into the house . l His face was wan and he ooked weary . Mother, quick to notice the slightest change in his coun

ten a n c e . , questioned him Unable to reply, he sat down at the table and buried his head upon

his arms . He was thoroughly disheartened and

unnerved . h Finally he told us w at had happened . Fort u Bend co nty, the heart of the black belt, where

a d colored men had worked long and well, and h

acquired valuable lands and money, was in the

- hands of a rioting white mob , and well known

colored men had been persecuted . There had been two recent murders in the

county . On was that of R . L . Shamblin , a prom

in en t wh o citizen of Richmond , while sitting in e his home reading out of the Bibl to his family,

was ﬁred upon from without and killed . The 8 4

8 6 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

and told him that whatever action he might take

er wou ld only lead to danger for himself, and p haps (prophetically speaking) , would be repaid by the enmity of the very men for whose mis

fortune he now grieved .

This was a new scene in our happy home life , and for the ﬁrst time I realized what the word “ ” prejudice meant . Father had repeatedly “ ” taught us that all men were equal, but this seemed a dark horror that could not be reasoned

away . After the riot appeared a new publication calling itself “The Ofﬁcial Organ of the Jaybird

Democratic Association of Fort Bend County . “ : One editorial said Fort Bend , Waller , Bra

zo r ia , Wharton and Matagorda have long been

known as the Senegambian districts , and have s u ﬁe r e d no little from designing politicians fol

lowed by the vast ignorant Negro population , but the white citizens at last got their eyes

open , and we now expect to see a radical change

in the political standing of these counties , and

that too in a very short time . Fort Bend Demo c r a ts have just succeeded in freeing themselves from Negro rule and are now willing to aid other ” counties in doing the same . ff In November, an e ort was made to conciliate

the frightened Negroes . A notice wa s pub

‘ lis h e d to the effect that a mass meeting would

be held at the Court House , with a view to ex FORT B END 8 7 plain that the object of the recent Democratic association was not to disfranchise the Negro altogether $ “ h ’ The W ite Man s Union , another associa

co n ven tion organized the same month , held a tion and from their platform gave more light as to the cause of the recent race riot . They stated that “the feeling had been intense over f the election of a Negro , last Fall, to the o fice of county and dr is tic t clerk and our object was ” to discourage Negroes from filling public offices .

Their inﬂuence was so strongly felt , that it resulted in the resignation of th e county clerk “ c and colored constable . Resignations were a ce te d A n w k p e cler and constable , both white , immediately took the oath and much s a tis fa c tion was expressed . The Fort Bend County Grand Jury returned two indictments against Mr . Ferguson , one charging him with being an accessory to th e assassination of Shamblin , and the other, with conspiring to assassinate Frost . Forced to leave his family and home , Mr . Ferguson went to

Nashville , Tenn . , hoping to ﬁle a suit in the Federal Courts against forty citizens of Fort

. L Bend County ater, he went to Washington,

. C . D , to seek government employment .

Father took charge of his interests , and on 28 h . t Sept , he wrote to Hon . George C . Tichenor “ a t Washington : I desire to repeat what I said 8 8 NORR I S WR I GHT CU N E Y

a to you while in Washington , regarding the p pointment of Mr . Ferguson to the position which he seeks as one fraught with great importance to the Republicans , not only of Texas, but

o f throughout the South . Outside the fact that he is honest , intelligent and worthy to ﬁll the

a d position , he has claims upon a Republican

ministration . “ We propose to make a test case of his suit, as to whether a man can be driven from his

home and his property , by the oligarchy which

not only now rules the South , but proposes to rule the country— because he dares to differ with w it on political questions . I enclose here ith a

copy of his petition ﬁled in the U . S . Court

here , that you may better understand just what I we are striving to accomplish in this case . hope you will have time to read it and lay the m sa e before the Secretary . “It does seem to me that our friends in the

North are asleep on this Southern question . They have not the time to consider it or they certainly would understand the purposes

of this southern oligarchy . The South has ceased to be a democracy so far as the Negro is im concerned . I urgently recommend that ” mediate action be taken in this case .

In a letter to Hon . J . S . Clarkson , then First

: Assistant Postmaster General , he said My W friend, Mr . Ferguson , ill call on you to talk

90 N ORRI S WR I GH T CU NE Y

s more than sanguine of uccess . The case has been

set down for the November term at Galveston . His enemies in Fort Bend County have in dicted him on severa l counts with a view of

forestalling him in his suit against them here . This move is understood thoroughly by his law

e r s . y and friends here This , in my judgment , will be one of the most remarkable cases in the history of our courts, and one in which

every manly Negro should feel a deep interest . You know that a prosecution of this kind can not be carried on without money . It is of the highest importance to a successful issue that we should raise a few hundred dollars . “ I understand that he is a high offi cial in the order of Odd Fellows , of which you are the head in the State . I also understand that the

Order is in a ﬂourishing condition . This being the case , I think an assessment of about ﬁve

‘

dollars per lodge , with what his personal and masonic friends will raise , will give us a fund f amply su ﬁcient for all purposes . “I sincerely hope that you will go to work at once in this matter and forward your c oll ec tion to Mr . Trowell or to me , as you see ﬁt . Let me hear from you at once as to what you is can do or will do , for the time short and ” this money must be raised .

The matter was taken up by Mr . Abner and

13th : others, and on Dec . , father wrote to friends FORT B E ND 9 1

F v . C . M . erguson arri ed here on Saturday night

u He went to jail Wednesday afternoon , s ed out a writ of habeas corpus and was released on 2 00 H $ 7 . is matters are in good shape and I do not think there is any doubt as to a judg ” ment in his favor .

Fe r u Upon his arrival in Galveston, Mr . g

son came directly to our home . It was thought

best to take precautions for his personal safety, and that night he wa s taken to the home of ’ my father s brother, Joseph . Here for four days he remained unseen except by the most intimate friends . On December eleventh , he voluntarily surrendered himself to the author ities .

Under the Civil Rights Act , the United States grand jury indicted sixty - two citizens of Fort

s h e r iﬁ Bend County , including the and county attorney, for forcing the colored men to leave

w a s n their homes , and there also an indictme t by the same jury of twenty- S i x citizens of Rich mond , charged with murder growing out of the Richmond riot . F ’ Mr . erguson s suit called for dam “ ages . The trial was held in Galveston County . The result wa s that the cases were dismissed at the cost of the defendants , a compromise having been eﬁe cte d whereby Ferguson was

awarded and was received by Dr .

Davis . CHAPTER XII .

T H E I LY H I T E L W s .

R I O T s and Race wars such as had dis graced the counties of Fort Bend and Wharton and deeply injured their citizens , were traceable to the displeasure of the ambitious white ofﬁce seekers . Political aspirants within the Republican party felt that the Negro was taking too prom

n n i e t a part in the affairs of government . The State convention of 1884 had demonstrated their purpose of expelling the colored American from the party, if possible , and now the mask was completely thrown aside . The first step wa s to overthrow the recog n ize d Cu ovVe r leader, ney, and strip him of his p and influence . The fight in favor of southern prejudice could not be won as long as a Negro with his following of black voters stood at the head of the party in Texas . The building up of a white man’s Republican party in the South was however impossible . The Negroes of the South could not be wrongfully used without offending their brothers in the 9 2

9 4 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

At the Galveston County Convention of April 3 d , which was held in pursuance of a call of the Chairman of the County Republican Ex

on c tive Committee , for the purpose of selecting delegates to the State Republican Convention

which was to meet at Fort Worth in September,

wa s father, who had been selected as a delegate ,

called upon to address the meeting . He Spoke with no bridled tongue of the political out

in rages Arkansas and Fort Bend County , Texas , and further stated that he recognized the ﬁght w a s on to overthrow the Negro Republicans in

the State , and characterized the promoters of the warfare as thieves and pickpockets . He asked no quarter in the coming struggle and would

give none .

The White Republicans , angered , attempted to inﬂuence the colored delegates to split on the

color question . It was their object to create

a factional ﬁght among the colored men , so that they would be free from blame . Their main ﬁght wa s centered on the chairmanship of the h convention , placing Louis Jo nson against Ed .

wh o wa s n Davis , proposed by the C u eyites for the position . The Cuney element won , and the delegation was equally divided among the white

and colored . s In a report of the proceedings , especial tress ’ wa s laid upon father s denunciation of the riot r ers in the State . A p ominent Galveston citi T H E “ LI LY WHI TES ” 95

zen , J . B . Stubbs , writing an open letter to the “ : in ﬂa m Galveston News , said It is just such m a to r y speeches as that delivered by Mr . Cuney last night that incites Negroes when in the majority to domineer over their white neigh bors until the latter rise to either precipitate bloodshed or force them to leave . I am s i n telli urprised at Mr . Cuney . He is a man of gence and has been the recipient of many hon ors at the hands of the people of this city ; yet one would think from his speech that Negroes ” were not safe in Texas . A San Antonio daily w a s of the opinion r While Mr . Cuney might be te med a rabid

wh o n partisan , few know him will questio that his utterances come from the heart— that he voiced his earnest conviction . The State Convention was held at Fort Worth 1 9th on September . Terribly in earnest , the m en assembled on the question of nomination or no nomination for the coming gubernatorial

w a s contest . But the question something more than party success in the coming election ; there were the well laid schemes to draw the color line , by a number of white Republicans , which the colored voters were determined to defeat .

th e s On cene were Rosenthal , Newcomb , Spauld ing and dozens of white Republicans from North

wh o and South Texas , came to ﬁght for the nomination of a S tate ticket, claiming that failure 96 NORRI S WRI GH T C U NE Y

to do so would be an intimation that the Repub lic a n s were afraid to place a State ticket in — the ﬁel d and announcement that property and life were u nsafe in Texas and that the laws did

not protect either .

- On the other hand , the no nominating ele ment gave strong and cogent reasons fo r their position . They claimed that many Republicans wh o before voted for Blaine were with the

Union Labor people . The election of the Repub lican State ticket being impossible , they would be free to trade with the Martin men and thus secure for Harrison a greater strength than 1884 Blaine had in . They did not state that there

n was physical danger in ominating a ticket , but declared that the failure to do so w a s best for the Republican party as a National party .

Mc C o r m a ck Malloy, Cochran , Millet , and

- Cuney led the anti ticket men ; De Gress, New comb , Rosenthal and perhaps a majority of the white delegates were ranged on the side of De

wh o Gress , called the Convention to order Sep 20 h tember t .

In his address to the Convention , placing John

T . Brady of Harris County in nomination for temporary chairman, father mentioned inter views and O pinions given by certain members

of the Convention . If quoted aright , they had

come there to draw the color line . They meant to put him in the attitude of one wh o would

9 8 NO R R I S WR I G H T C U NE Y

was ing of it , but if it drawn , it was drawn forever . Thus the controversy waged until father took “ the ﬂoor . The scene was thus reported As

N . W . Cuney took the ﬂoor a heavy rain came

u . p , the lightning ﬂashed and thunder rolled Something wa s expected from Cuney and the

wa s . situation s trained Cuney could not , at a ﬁrst, be heard on the platform , but his m nner and the elements for the ﬁrst time during the Convention secured a silence that was almost O ppressive after the jamboree that had lasted

for hours . “ o He walked up and d wn the aisle . His step

- is smooth and cat like , his voice is soft and

melodious and then again stern and harsh . His gestures are graceful and his language far

above the average , but his power is in the fact H that he feels his strength . He knows it . is s peech was at ﬁrst an explanation of his posi

tion . It was simply that he was a Republican

and a Texan . He dared to point out where the

Democrats had dealt unjustly by his race , but

in doing it he did not assail his mother State .

No man could teach him . He had held ofﬁces

of trust and emolument . He called on good m en , R Democrats as well as epublicans, to say w n o t hether or he had been a clean servant . He had been charged by the Democratic press T H E “ LI LY WH I TE S 9 9

with being a leader of a faction . This was

false . “ R He knew no color in epublicanism, but fought for it without scrutinizing the complexion

of the men who stood beside him in the ranks .

After he was done with this line , he lectured the element of the party that were dissatisﬁed ff with the present state of a airs . He had taken

H e the stand by this time . walked before the foot — h e S s . lights . He spoke kindly poke everely — He pleaded for harmony h e scowled and shook

wa s his ﬁnger . It a sight worth seeing . He trod the boards like a Booth . He was the actor a t with his part well in h nd , the master spirit tha knows that what he says is treasured and not

to be s oon forgotten it was a climax, so delivered that his followers took ﬁre and he ” swept all before him from that time on . When the vote wa s taken for temporary ’

a s d. chairman father s candidate , Grady, w electe

n J . E . Wiley of Dallas was elected Secretary a d

William Edgar Easton of Travis , assistant Sec “

r eta r . A y fter an excited controversy , the no ” ticket men won , and after a lengthy and heated

e m debat , the report of the committee on platfor

and resolutions was adopted . The resolutions ratifying the nomination of Harrison and Mor ton demanded such national legislation as would

give adequate protection to wool , hide and

other Texas products and industries , and de 100 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

' n ou n c e d the Fort Bend and Washington County outrages . After the adjournment of the Convention there w a s a caucus held by those who were indignant at the alleged arbitrary actions of the chairman . But wise counsel prevailed and , though the indignation remained, the caucus voted down every motion for the publication of a protest , or the encouragement of anything like rebellion from the action of the Convention . Thus the ﬁrst attempt to draw the color line in the Republican party in Texas was defeated , f but it called orth bitter criticism . An article which “ appeared in the daily press under the “ ’ ” caption The State s Tradu cers scored the “ ” - victorious no party element in the Convention . “ Part of it follows : Such O pen bulldozing h a s

T he never been seen in Convention in Texa s . resolutions denouncing the Fort Bend and Washington County troubles were drawn with all the skill and cunning of a Macchiavelli .

They were not , by themselves , an arraignment of either party , but their framers well knew that the State’s enemies at the North would seize upon them with the stories of fraud and force already published, and with the refusal to nominate a ticket , thus weave them into a

’ in wh ich reign of terror in Texas , the life of a Republican w a s always in danger and the

ballot in the hands of a Negro a mere farce .

NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

African , with Cuney as Postmaster and some other saddle - colored political saint in the Custom

r e House , I say if those things are to be the ’ ward for Crain s ﬁdelity to his whole district , it would be a just retribution to see your Demo cr atic congressman whispering into the ears of the engineers to search cautiously for deep °2 water elsewhere And who is Cuney . Once respected as an intelligent mulatto , he forfeited your respect when he charged that the good people of Washington and Fort Bend Counties would not permit a free ballot to Negroes . The slander of our people in this crisis of thei r — fate should consign him to infamy The fore most man of all the world is the Anglo - Saxon

American white man . By the ties of a common I blood, higher than party and party policies, appeal to you to quit the ranks of the black

wh o cohorts, , by their race hatred and ingrati tude , now jeopardize social order and property

n rights . Their depraved leaders have mag iﬁed every individual wrong done to a Negro , into a sectional grievance and cause our people to be misunderstood and hated thro ughout th e North . Cuney has been petted too long by the Gal veston people . When he charged that martial law was desirable to the present condition of ff a airs , and prated upon the insecurity of the colored people in certain sections of this State , it wa s s imply a bait thrown ou t to Northern T H E “ LI L Y WHI TES ” 1 03

wa s Republicans for bloody shirt purposes . It a pretty picture , this African leader pulling the white Republicans of the State around by the

n o ff nose , leadi g them after Marion Martin and

- h e the new fangled Labor Union party, while ” went about slandering the people of Texas . The whites were particularly incensed with father over an interview published in the Wash

n o n . . n i gt (D C ) Post, in reference to souther governors attempting to prevent the Sullivan s Kilrain ﬁght , which had been held some month

: before . Father had said “These southern governors are making laughing stocks of themselves by their proclama tions . When there are race riots or political outbreaks , they claim to be unable to act unless the sheriffs of the counties where the trouble lies ask for aid ; but because a couple of prize fighters threaten to break the peace by punch n ing each other for a couple of hours , the gover L A ors of ouisiana , Mississippi , rkansas and Texas issued proclamations forbidding the fight and ordering the arrest of the fighters . They ff did not wait for any appeal from sheri s, but went ahead . “ a Governor Ross of Tex s , had beter look at home . Over in Fort Bend County, adjoining

l t - Galveston , a o of young Democratic hot heads

’ ‘ have formed an organization known as Ja y ’ T r a t 00 n 200 birds . he e a r e bou 30 color ed a d 104 NORRI S WRI G H T CUNEY whites i n the County and a mixed ticket is usually elected with a Democratic sheriff at the head . Last Fall there were but two tickets ,

wa s the Cleveland and Thurman , which the con ‘ ’ e va tive a bir ds s r ticket, and the J y , the former winning . “ ‘ ’ The Ja ybir ds were incensed and disposed

h o b . w to make trou le One Gibson , was the de

feated candidate for assessor , tried to pick

a quarrel with Kyle Terry, the successful candi

date , and two shots were exchanged in a street

encounter . “ Young Terry is a nephew of Ju dge Terry of

wh o California , killed Broderick years ago , and ’ wh o re cently s erved six months imprisonment

for contempt of court . A week or so ago ,

wa s u t Terry over at Wharton , the c o n y seat of

w a s Wharton County . Gibson there also , and l had been threatening Terry . The atter, on see

ing his enemy approaching, nearly blew Gib ’ son s head o ff with a dou ble barrelled shot gun . “ It would be a good plan for Governor Ross ff ” to turn his attention to domestic a airs .

106 NORRI S WRI G H T CUNE Y

After the inauguration of President Har

i n ew u r son , a era of naval constr ction was b e im gun, and increasing outlays were made for provement of rivers and harbors— the latter of direct importance to the deep - water in terests of f Galveston . A new building for Post O ﬁce and

Custom House at Galveston was , constructed, and father was destined to be the ﬁrst Collector to occupy it . There was great pressure brought upon father for patronage in Texas . He found it necessary “ : to reply to one letter, in part I do not wish to be harsh in reply to your proposition to pay

' me for my influence in s e cu r in g you the posi tion , as you , doubtless, like many others in private life , take it for granted that all pub lic men demand or expect pay from those whom they endorse for public office “ I simply desire to say it is not a fact . My position in the Republican Organization in Texas is of an official nature and as a partisan it is f my duty to support those , for o ficial place , of my party faith who are the best fitted to dis

o f f charge the duties the o ﬁces. to which they are appointed , and it was solely upon this ground that I recommended Mr . N for a p ’ pointment .

w a s At Houston , George A . Race appointed Postmaster in preference to the candidates of ’ - u n i s i C e te . t the anti y Of Race s appointment, COL LE CTOR OF PORT OF GAL VESTON 107

was said : It is an additional evidence that the

white leaguers in Texas are getting badly left . H The defeat of Strong, opkins and Ham , shows that the movement to form an exclusively white ’ man s Republican party wa s doomed to an early ” death in Texas .

a l In July, the new postmaster for D las, John

i i r 9th a W tve wa s s d. S . , electe July saw the p

pointment, too , of Mrs . Belle Burchill to the

o . Postmastership of the city f Fort Worth . Mrs ’ Burchill wa s a ' good friend o f father s and a

woman of political sagacity . When father was asked to throw his inﬂuence toward a certain candidate for the Post Ofﬁce

e in cu m at Abilene , T xas , in opposition to the “

. : bent , Mrs Morrow, he replied The lady who is Postmaster there is the daughter of a man whose services in behalf of Texas are historical and not only will I refuse to aid anyone to

supersede the daughter of General Sam Houston , but I will ﬁle a protest with the Department ” against her removal . His action met with the commendation of “ : all Texans . The press noted The attempt

of Col . De Gress to secure the removal of the m widowed daughter of Gen . Sam Houston fro the Post Ofﬁce at Abilene has given Cuney

another chance to demonstrate his superiority . ’ Cuney s plea for the retention of Mrs . Mor R row shows that in spite of his epublicanism, 1 08 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY he has the feeling of a T exan and a Texan’s ” pride in the glorious history of his State . Father’s appointment to the position of Col l e cte r of Customs for the port of Galveston was urged by leading business men as well as politi ci a n s , and as early as April, he announced his intention of applying for the position . Peti tions were also circulated for the appointment of Gen . Malloy . ’ In opposition to father s candidacy, a Lily l White organization, the Centra Republican

a d Club of Houston , had a mass meeting and dressed resolutions to the President , which brought forth the following comment from the “ : Houston Post The Republican State boss, i Mr . Cuney, s not going to retain his position without ﬁghting for it , if there be any virtue , O in organized pposition . The Republicans are preparing to openly and vigorously wage war on the colored chief, and endeavor to place

Republican politics in Texas on a higher plane . Cuney has ridden a very high horse among his

Republican brethren . He has been running a kind of Tammany side - show all to himself down here and in the language of this remonstrance , has ‘got people scared of h im ’ or words to that f e fect . These gentlemen who are representing th e white wing of the party want to call a ” halt .

Strange as it may Seem , some of the most

1 10 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

stand . It will promise in advance , however, ’ O c h iltr ee s if Col . explanation is reasonable not to say another word on the subject . But wh y this mysterious secrecy $ Why should Cuney come to New York if Ochiltree is to be thus incommoded ' and required to explain $ Why is Cuney, anyhow The press was further disturbed : It has been a severe tax on the bra in of the several con tr ibu to r s to this article to decipher what is the real meaning of the mysterious dispatch of

Col . Ochiltree to the Star , relative to the importance of not white - washing or otherwise changing the color of Hon . Wright Cuney , the colored candidate for the Collectorship of the port of Galveston . All the facts positively known to be well established which will aid in the deciphering of the dispatch are “1 . That Prince Ochiltree dispenses the pat r n o a ge of the State of Texas . “2 . That Wright Cuney is a sagacious Repub ff s o . lican politician of Texa , and color “

3 . That Col . Ochiltree desires that he should ‘ ’ be kept dark by the Star which shines f o r

all even in the dark, and ; 4 ’ . That said Cuney wants to be Mr . Blaine s t Collec or of the port of Galveston , provided

- there is no Harrison man relative in the State . “Do these point to any solution at all $ They — s uggest several guesses, Did Col . Ochiltree em COLLE CTOR OF PORT OF GAL VESTON 1 1 1 ploy the mysterious C u n eyifo r m cryptographic dispatch mingled with half unintelligible slang to throw the Star o ff the scent of his purposes —was it his intention to inﬂict on the good Democratic merchants of Galveston a Republican Collecter of obnoxious hue without their knowl edge by asking the only D emocratic paper of New York to keep mum ' as to his dark or darky $ designs Or was it the real purpose of Col . O chiltree to keep the dark gentleman , Cooney or Cuney, as the case may be , in the gloaming, n o t o to say Stygian r Egyptian darkness , while he dispensed the patronage of the port of G a l h veston through hands that were whiter, thoug not purer $” The banter continued : The mystery deepens as to the precise relations of Ochiltree , the Red

Prince Royal of the Lone Star State , and Cuney, or Cooney , the colored candidate for the Custom e H G . ouse at alveston From all accounts , Coon y or Cuney has thrown a shadow of gloom around the White House at Washington , in which his chances are obscured ; while Prince ’ O c h iltr e e s advent in the Star ofﬁce early yes te r day afternoon led persons looking west through Park Place into the error of suppos a ing that his red - topped head wa s the orb of day indulging in an untimely yet golden ” s unset .

— n Many replies were sent to the Star, O e 1 12 NORRI S WR I GH T CUNEY

read : When Frank Hatton captured the Texas colored delegation to the Republican C on ven 1884 tion of , for Chester A . Arthur , at a ﬁxed

250 a commercial value of $ a deleg te , it was Wright Cuney who lassoed them for Blaine by the cheaper methods of his eloquence . He has been for years past the leader of the Texas

Republicans, as Col . Ochiltree has been the dis penser of Texas patronage and of Texas hospi ff H ” tality at the Ho man ouse . Father was invited with th e other members of the National Committee to attend the in au gu

o f ration General Harrison as President . When father left Galveston for Washington , which wa s before the New York visit in the summer , he passed through Houston and wa s met at the

depot by a committee of citizens . His presence w a s immediately noted by a representative of “

: . . the press N W Cuney, the noted Texas col ored politician , arrived in Houston last night . Of course a Post reporter paid his respects to this stalwart pillar of the Texas Republican party . Mr . Cuney is pleasant in manner and

h a s outspoken , and , more than once in contests

in c o n with white rivals, demonstrated to an

tr o ve r tibl e n degree, his shrewd ess as a poli

tic ia n . “ He leaves on the midnight train— h e is going to Washington principally in his own behalf, but also in accordance with an understanding ar

1 14 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

n you think, for the Collectorship at Galvesto and what endorsements do you hold $’ I am backed by the honest people of Gal ’ ‘

h . veston, he said, wit out any regard to party All I asked wa s a testimonial as to my char a cter as an honest, truthful man and upright t citizen , and that I received from the very bes — I people of Galveston . Those people know me have lived there all my life and they have had

to a mple opportunity to judge me . I venture say that outside of politics you will ﬁnd n one ’ to condemn me . “ Mr . Cuney left last night for Washington s via New Orleans . He said he knew of no oppo i tion to himself, but this is a mistake . He will have very strong opposition . It is going to be a black versus Lily White ﬁght . The White Republicans are going to down Cuney if

they can , and if they fail , it will be because of ’ ” Mr . Blaine s friendship for the latter . The Texarkana (Texas) Times said : We h O p e and believe that the merchants and busi ness men of Galveston will at last enter their protest against the appointment of any Negro m for Collector, even if they fail to recom end a

suitable person . We have made these remarks because we hear that the business men are paus

ing as to whether Cuney shall be their choice .

We hope they will not pause longer . The Star replied to the above : Unlike th e COLLECTOR OF PORT OF GAL VE STON 1 15

the Times, the Star has no lecture to read to Galveston business men in advance of any a c tion taken by them on the subject . We believe ‘ that as long a s their blood is thicker than ’ water, they will do what they believe to be ” right in the premises . 1 7th e . On the of Jun , the St Louis Republic gave a review of the status of the Collectorship “ ’ case : Since the withdrawal of De Gress a p th e plication for Collectorship of El Paso , Texas , the Texas patriots have been in a high s tate

of exciteme nt . “ ’ They construe De Gress action to mean war to the knife . Now that De Gress has no irons

Of h is own in the ﬁre , it is generally expected that he will take occasion to oppose Cuney and ’ b in a general way, Cuney s friends . It is e lieve d that Cuney is acting under the advice of Newcomb and it is well known that New comb and Cuney have no friendship to waste

on each other . ’ Newco mb favors a white man s Republican

party in Texas, and the exclusion of Negroes from places of power ; it is probable that he has c G m oaxed De ress to fall in with the . Rus sell Harrison is taking a hand in the ﬁght in

behalf of Hedges, and so is Chairman Huston

of the Indiana State Republican Committee , H At Mark anna and Charley Foster of Ohio , torney-General Michener of Indiana an d the 1 16 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

politicians of inﬂuence . R . F . Pancoast of Gal veston is also an applicant for the Collectorship .

- r He is an ex commande of Hancock Post, G .

A . R . “It is thought that Cuney would prefer Pan coast to Hedges, but Cuney will not give up himself until Collector Sweeney’s successor is m a p p o te d . He will not compromise with any ” o r body for anything else .

This much is true , for it had been intimated to father that he could have the position of

Recorder of Deeds , at Washington , D . C . , with O it out pposition , as had long been a place

c slated for representative olored politicians .

But because of this very fact , and also for the reason that it would ta ke him away from his own State where he felt he could be of greater service to his people , he refused to consider an y other position except that of the Collector ship of the Galveston port . l

R e bli : e The St . Louis p u c declared Cun y is insisting on being given the Collectorship at

a Galveston . He has got a gre t lot of endorse me nts from Galveston business men attached to

a d his petition , but there are hints that the ministration would prefer a white man for the

- wh o a , a place . Blaine , is man of inﬁnite t ct , knows that it would not popularize the admin

i s tr a tio n , to have a Negro in the chief Federal f w o ﬁce in Texas, and hile friendly to Cuney,

1 18 N ORR I S WRI GH T C U NE Y has never borrowed money of his friends and forgotten to repay it— induced them to indorse him and left them the bag to hold $ “He says that if Blaine becomes a member of ’ Harrison s cabinet , Cuney will be made Collector of the p ort of Galveston, which will be highly displeasing to th e white business men of Gal veston , of both parties . It is hardly likely that ’ ‘ B r i n Mr . O e Moore has found time in the hurly ’ ‘ ’ ‘ burly of keeping moving and dr a wm g pen pictures’ to worm his way into the conﬁdence o f Blaine or Harrison , but admitting that his

e wh guess s be correct , y should the business $ men of Galveston kick Mr . Cuney s erved

n ow the city several times as Alderman , and is an honored member of the board of Water Com m I f wa s issioners . there no objection to his making laws for the government of the white wh business men of Galveston, y should there be objection to his collecting Uncle Sam’s dues ” a t this port $ A Washington special to the Galveston N ews “ gave this warning : If the administration is r - eally anti African , it has been suggested that the failure to give the Galveston Collectorship to Cuney would be an exceeding explicit way of showing its hand . As yet nobody believes that this will happen , for it is claimed that to turn down Cuney would be disastrous to the party outside the limits of Texas . It has COLLECTOR O F PORT OF GALVESTON 119 r eached a point where there is vastly more in it than the fortune of an individual . Because of the strong opposition aroused s olely on account of color, the Collectorship c andidacy became one of national interest . It wa s admitted that no candidate bore higher endorsements than the colored applicant for th e position . They were from leading citizens of

— bu s m es s Galveston and the State at large men,

- bankers, and capitalists Democrats as well as

Republicans . It was expected by all the members of the National Committee that this appointment would be among those made at least by May . Yet it wa s constantly delayed at the Treasury Depart f ment , although all of the leading o ﬁcials of the National Committee had seen the President and found him willing to make the appoint ment . n Time dragged along without action . Frie ds advised father to remain in Washington until the appointment should be made , but with his

wa s f active spirit , this a di ﬁcult task . One afternoon in July he went to see his friend

h i ffi Gen . Clarkson at s o ce in the Post Office Department and told him that he would wait no longer . He asked him to go and see the President with him and get a fin al answer one wa w a s . y or the other . He invited by Gen Clarks on to breakfast with him the next morn 120 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

ing, after which they would go to the White

House . Upon their arrival at the White House the following morning they were told that the Presi

Mr dent was engaged with . Windom , Secretary

of the Treasury, signing appointments for that

Department . Gen . Clarkson sent in a special request to see the President and was ushered into the ofﬁce where Secretary Windom and the President were engaged . The appointment

' a s s e d a t that was p that particular moment , was at for the Collectorship Galveston , and the

n President was signing it as Gen . Clarkson e “ r a n : te e d . He held it out to him d said That

an d is right , is it not as was ﬁnally decided upon , ’ ” $ : isn t it Gen . Clarkson replied No , Mr .

t . President , that is not the righ name In con f e r en c e s some of us had with you , with some

a people from Texas with us, you decided to p ” Mr point . Wright Cuney to this place .

The President rose from his chair , and walked

over to the window, carrying the appointment “ : th e with him , and said I remember now, but Department has for some time been advising diﬁe r en tly and had caused me to change my ” “ : mind . Then in an earnest voice he said If you were President would you give the most important position in Texas and one of the $” most important in the whole South , to a Negro “ d : b e o f Gen . Clarkson answere Yes, and glad

122 NORRI S WRI GHT C UNEY

citizens for important places . They were N . W. Cuney for Collector of Customs at Galveston ;

James J . Dickerson of Fort Bend County for

s Marshal of eastern district ; and Jo eph W . Burke of Austin for Collector of Internal

Revenue for the third Texas district . “ s Sweeney, the present Collector at Galve ton , 23d lacked until Oct . next, of completing his

term, so that his is a case of straight removal . No charges against him were ever talked of among the Texans here and if any were made w his successor a s no party to them . “Cuney’s appointment is not only highly grati

f in t y g to his immedia e friends, but scores of people from the States crowded about him when e his success b came known , with compliments

and congratulations . Among them several Con

r m n g e s s e and leading politicians . He bears his

honors modestly, yet is evidently full of pride and happiness at achieving at last the crown

. ' ing measure of his ambition . It did not take any peculiar acuteness to see from the start that

win he would . With four such leaders as

Blaine , Allison , Elkins and Clarkson to back $ him , how could he fail Where you have four aces any novice knows that such a hand is in vincible . “ Then too , Cuney played his hand with skill . He pursued the even tenor of his way and never ” lost a jot of his faith in his ultimate victory . COLLECTOR OF PORT O F GALVESTON 123

n O the ﬁrst of August , father arrived home from Washington, the successful candidate for “the most important appointment given to a

Negro by President Harrison, in point of salary ” and momentous importance . The Houston Post sarcastically noted : Down ‘ ’ n r e at Cu ey Island last night , the elaborate

i Mr c e ton . p prepared for Cuney, the dark s kinned white man , who was recently given the most important Federal position in Texas by ” Benjamin Harrison , took place .

There were comments, favorable and other

a a n wise . From far distant Iowa , ppeared “ editorial in the Iowa Register : One of the most satisfactory and most gratifying appoint i be ments so far, s that of Mr . N . W . Cuney , to

Collector of Customs at Galveston . He has been th e Texas member of the Republican Na tion a l Committee for several years , and has been unusually efﬁcient and valuable to the party i n that position . He is a man of bright mind, quick understanding , good judgment and a

s h large endowment of common ense , united wit a character whose integrity has never been n challe ged . “He will make a very efﬁcient officer and will discharge the duties of his position in a manner acceptable alike to the Government and to the business interests of Galveston . “ s n o f The electio for this i mportant place , NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

a man wh o has done a great deal of hard work for the party, will g reatly please the Repub lic a n s of Texas, and is a ﬁtting recognition of ” a good and true man .

Po s t The , of Houston , gave its parting shot If any single consideration outside of partisan

‘ ’ politics entered into Cuney s appointment , it wa s the remarkable endorsement which the busi ness men of Galveston , depending upon Demo cratic patronage and trade , furnished . So between the rank partisanship of the a d l ministration , backed and so icited by the Gal veston merchants , it happens that one of the most offensive Republican Negro politicians and bosses of Texas , is fastened upon the business of the State for the next four years , as Col ” lector of the port of Galveston . The Galveston N ews gave a terse rejoinder Its animus is too perspicuous to deceive any ” of the friends of Democratic Galveston . The Indianapolis (I n d ) World thought

The appointment of Mr . Cuney is the best that the President has made— in view of his unselfish devotion and sacrifice in behalf of his people . Mr . Cuney has for years been an unselfish worker in the Republican ranks, and

an d for honor, probity moral worth, no man ” s tands higher .

: The St . Louis Republic continued Cuney wa s backed by nearly every prominent Repub

126 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

them at all hazards, has characterized his every

action , and it is this which has won for him

- the reputation which he enjoys to day . A

better selection could not have been made . It is not the purpose of this article to indulge in

any particular eulogy of the Negro , but it does seem that when an important position is given

a Negro , a few disgruntled politicians should cease nursing their sore thumbs and come out ” on the side of justice . was When Gov . Coke of Texas asked if he ’ would oppose father s conﬁrmation as Collector, “ : he replied No , Sir, Cuney is President Har rison’s appointee and on him rests the responsi

ili ob ec b ty for the appointment . There is no j

tion to Cuney, save his color . When the appointment came before the Sen

ate , Senator Coke remained neutral, while Sen

ator Reagan of Texas voted to conﬁrm him . 18 0 9 . . . In January, , father relieved Capt C C

s on Sweeney . Dr . George M . Patten , the of

Nathan Patten , a former Collector of Customs, wa s selected as his Deputy, and the personnel f f of the o ﬁce made up of e ﬁcient men , a bout a n d equally divided among white colored . CHAPTER XIV .

T H E O LO R B AR C .

U T SI DE o f 1890 1891 O politics, the years and

wa s i n were uneventful . Father active the

State . At the request of the people he visited many of the County fairs, delivered addresses ff on the tari , industrial conditions, education,

/ the Negro question a n d o th er live issues of th e day .

At the founding of Langston City, Okla

Mc C a be homa , father wrote to the Hon . E . P . I believe you are on the right course ; such an enterprise will, I hope , prove beyond question that the race is capable of uniting and doing that which cannot fail to elicit favorable com ” m nda tio n e . Other enterprises of the people of color in the South were now being considered . The col ored institutions of learning were rapidly grow

n ing in Texas , and father , alive to their eeds , —4 wa s c On s ta n tly in demand giving advice and working for their cause . As a mark of recognition of his interest in e general edu cation , public schools wer being given his name . 128 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

To the principal of the N . W . Cuney School “ W hites bo r o u h s : at g , Texa , he wrote Please con vey to the trustees , patrons and pupils , my high appreciation of the mark of conﬁdence and r e spect S hown by them in the naming of their school for me . “ Say to the little ones for me , that they

s i n iﬁ cannot realize , at the present time , the g cance of their action and my appreciation thereof “ It i s tru ly gratifying that the youth in our public schools should a ppreciate me for doing those things in my public life which I believe to be right and for the best interests of our

u common co ntry . “ None of the l iving can n ow say but what d some of the little ones in that group , actuate by an ambition to serve their fellow man a n d

m a the interests of our country, y yet be called upon to ﬁll the highest positions in the gift of

B u t the people . in this they should remember that integrity and intelligence and patience are the essential qualities in life , for su ccess . “ I send herewith a ﬂag , the emblem of our country . May you impress upon their minds , young as they are , the signiﬁcance of this em blem to themselves and their posterity— teach

’ them to cherish it, to love it and if necessary ” to die for it . A 188 9 a s early as , separate coach bill was

13 0 N ORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

bers permitted him to use it to gratify his a m

u u n o ﬁen din bitio for injuring the weak and g . “I think it an undeniable fact that if there wa s any great public demand for separate cars

in this State , the Railroad would put them on in obedience to the demand and I can assure you that it would be far more desirable to be wronged by a Railroad Corporation than by the w State , hich I ought to and want to love . “ Hundreds , perhaps, of white and colored people transact business on the c ars go m g from

bu t place to place , under this bill they will be d enied this privilege . Look at the bill in any l ou ight y may, one is forced to the conclusion

u that it is ncalled for, unwise , a violation of the rights of property, and a brutal invasion of the rights of a people whose consciences will feel keenly the wrong done them by the ‘New South’ in its effort to reverse fate and check the growth o f h a broader and better umanity . “Protestation may be useless where folly holds the reins but I protest against this outrageous injustice . 1 891 During the year , the separate coach law wa s enacted by the Twenty - second Legislature of

— u m Texas the ﬁrst in the State , of a series of just and pernicious legislation . 1 1 1 891 On Sept . , , the colored men of the f State , irrespective of political a ﬁliation , held a i n successful convention at G a lves to . Com T H E COLOR B AR 13 1

’ mitte es were formed on Emigration , World s

Fair and Education . Opposition was made to a separate department for colored exhibits at ’ S the World s Fair, and a pecial address issued

to the Governor and the people of the State , I . . . S against the s eparate coach bill Rev . B cott ,

now Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church ,

wa s m , with my father, com ended as one of the ’ n r C o mm i s s m e s at the World s Fair at Chicago .

s About this time , my parent decided that I s hould attend the New England Conservatory

a s of Music at Boston , M s , where I might com

l ete p my general education , and at the same time have the adva nta ge of a thorough musical

training . After a summer spent in Newport, I R . . , my mother made arrangements for my

entering the Institution . One other colored

a student , besides myself, occupied room in the

S Conservatory home , and for a hort while there

wa s a no unpleasantness on ccount of color .

Nevertheless, late in October, my fa ther r e c eive d a letter from the executive c ommittee saying “ u Your daughter, with other colored p pils

wh o have entered the Home of the Institution , was received in good faith and has enjoyed its every privilege ; but we ﬁnd ourselves confronted with a problem growing out of their connec

tion with the Home , which seriously affects the interests of the Cons ervatory - a problem 13 2 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

for which there seems no adequate solution save in the disposition of the parents of colored pupils to provide them homes outside the Con

s er to r va y . We have a large number of pupils ff ‘ who are a ected by race prejudices, and the Home must be conducted so as to insure the com fort and satisfaction of the largest number pos

sible , otherwise its success, and the success of the Institution, which is entirely dependent upon

i s its patronage , imperilled . “ ff Further, despite our best e ort , we realize that we cannot save the colored ladies in the

Home , from the possibility of disagreeable ex

er ien c e s a dva n p , and while all the educational tages of the Institution are open to them , it seems advisable for their own comfort , for the stability and welfare of the Institution whose

a n d advantages they covet and enjoy, for the

n adva tage of all concerned, that they make their home with friends outside “ My father replied : I notice with extreme reluctance the bewildering fact that glori im ous Massachusetts , with her long line of — mortal heroes William L . Garrison , Wendell

‘

Phillips , Chas . Sumner, John A . Andrews , John ’ R eill Boyle O y, and a whole host of noble men and women too numerous to mention , can r furnish an institution of lea ning, capable of

- surrendering her world wide fame , won in the

a n d ﬁelds of humanity christian en deavor , at

THE COLOR B AR 13 3

the demand of a dying prejudice which your great State has done so much towards render ing nauseous in the eyes of enlightened human

ity . Publications and catalogues attracted my at

in tention to your institution . I accepted your vitation to the world to embrace its advantages

for my child . I believed that your principles W ere ﬁxed in the foundations of humanity,

“ justice and honor, and not subject to the con tr ol of a few misguided girls or parents . “I thought you had counted all the triﬂing

a . costs and were br ced for them J udge , then , how greatly I have been deceived by your atti tude in printed s olicitations for patronage . You request my c o - operation in s urrender ing to the demands of prejudice , by withdraw ing my daughter ; I cannot help you . Ask Massachusetts ; ask her mighty dead ; ask her

c o - O living sons and daughters . They will per if ate with you , you cannot solve the problem , and render your Institution illustrious through out all ages . To me he wrote at the same time “ You were quite right , darling , when you said

s that you knew your father would tell you to tay .

I can safely trust my good name in your hands . I wish you were where I could embrace and kiss you but will have to content myself with ki s s m g your photo on my desk which I now do . 1 3 4 NORRI S WRI GHT C UNE Y

s en Your conduct , dear, in this case meet my tire approval and makes me doubly proud of you . I only hope to see you pull through in your studies . I know you will make no mistakes

as to your conduct in school, knowing so well a who you are . Why did you not nswer my tele gram $ All of our friends here admire your pluck . I have B een very busy in public matters . They are now out of the wa y and I Shall only live now for mama , you and Lloyd . I am still troubled with insomnia but hope to get over the trouble soon . I was preparing to sue the Institution if they dared force you out of the ” building .

I refused to leave the dormitory, and because

wa s . of this , subjected to many petty indignities

I insisted upon proper treatment . The atti tude of myself and my parents wa s displeasing

in to the Conservatory management, but the structors were just and the ma tter wa s ﬁnally ‘ ’ adjusted by my remaining in the Home . The di rectors later publicly declared that the whole matter arose from a “misunderstanding” and that there was no color bar in the in s titu tion .

13 6 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

for those principles which he and they have so

continuously, nobly and ably defended . “ I can not believe that the people of Kansas, wh o have made their State the home of the m oppressed for these any years will, at this late day so far forget the noble deeds of their ancestors, as to take such a step backward, and defeat the election of Mr . Ingalls, and thus give strength to that element referred to , which rules the South with a mailed hand . I believe all tr ue Republicans in the South and lovers of human liberty everywhere view with alarm

. S the possible defeat of Mr Ingalls , the ilver tongued pleader for a free ballot , a fair count and the rights of humanity . Kansas, in my judgment, in the defeat of Mr . Ingalls, will lose that proud position which she occupie s in the eyes of enlightened civilization acquired by

a his genius and eloquence . I know there is great unrest among the producing classes of our

country, but I cannot see how in view of the fact that the South is solid and ruled by an oligarchy , the defeat of Mr . Ingalls will better S their condition . In hort , can Kansas take this step twenty-ﬁve years backward and extend aid to the same men wh o struggled so hard to over throw those principles which she so nobly de fended $ I notice the Democratic press now proposes to use the defeat of Senator Wade Hampton as a reason why Senator Ingalls should POLI TI CS AGAI N 13 7

s c be defeated . Mr . Irby promise to arry out

u r the policy defended by Mr . Hampton . O friends in Kansas s hould observe that the alli ance in the South do not advance on the prin c ip l es of the Democratic p arty because they a r e

Democrats, yet they ask and urge the Repub lic a n s of th e North and West to forsake all that has m ade them so great and break away from ‘ th e p r in cip l es of that party which they fought

i n R e and died to sustain . I , the name of the publicans of the South , hope their chalice will pass from ou r lips a n d tha t they will stand

ﬁrmly by those principles, so ably defended by i a Garrison, Ph llips , Butler, Sumner and host of those wh o have made our country as glorious s u c as it is . With the best of wishes for the cess of Mr . Ingalls, I am yours very truly ,

N . W . CUNEY .

In Texas politics, following the usual county

c on ven and congressional conventions , the State 4 h S t a n . tion was held on Sept . in Antonio “ wh o There the Lily Whites , were constantly engaged in improving their plans to free them selves from contact with the colored voter, were again defeated .

o c In an interval which followed , father had casion to reply to a correspondent , relative to political questions before the people . He said , “ : s in p art I have , ince my return home , read 13 8 NORRI S WRI GHT C U NE Y

your letter very carefully and have arrived at the conclusion that your proposition is not a

practical one, but the earnestness in which you write and the undoubted sincerity which S hows upon the face of your letter demand at my hand

reasons for this conclusion . “ In the ﬁrst place, this is a political question in which all people Should be free to act accord ing to their judgment as to what is for the best

r i interests of our State . If the question is det

mental to the laboring interests of our State ,

then , in my judgment , all the laboring inter ests without reference to nationality should take

action against it . “ In the second place : If there is any one thing in our public relations I abhor and detest it is the question of the injustice therein of

color, religion or nationality, and it has been the labor of my public life for twenty years , to eliminate these elements from our public policy . “The Negro is a part of the citizenship of our country, endowed with all the rights under the constitution which are enjoyed by any other class of citizens , and equally responsible for the good or evil which may ﬂow from the per f r m n o a c e of his public duties, and in my opin ion it is the duty of all right - thinking men continually to impress this upon his mind , thereby making the citizenship of our common

140 NOR R I S WRI GHT CUNE Y

. s . F . . L . ulton , P J Willi , J M ee, W F . Turnley,

L M Kin n . c e . Secretary Dana , S . y, H Austin ,

R . M . Cash , and father, with the members of the artillery company were on hand . Mayor Fulton ,

Mr . Dana and father delivered the addresses of welcome , which were happily responded to M by Capt . unger . 24th On Nov . the National Republican Com mittee met in Washington, D . C . , where there was a most S pirited contest for the National

Convention . Father wa s especially honored in the meeting of the Committee , by being called

- by Gen . Clarkson, to preside . Ex Governor Pinchback of Louisiana had O pportu nity dur in g the afternoon recess , to denounce the white

Republicans of the South , whom he said , he “held to be responsible for the lack of virility

of of the party in that section the country, and for suppressing the Negro vote fo r fear of race issues . At the night session, the intrepid S r e Governor Foraker of Ohio poke , and was c ei wa s ve d with the greatest enthusiasm . It “ : reported that His friends he pleased , by his magniﬁcent speech ; his enemies he disappointed , because they could ﬁnd nothing to criticise . Many of them he won over to himself and made them his lasting friends; There wa s not a man in that great crowd . who did not admire

Gov . Foraker after he had ﬁnished his speech . There wa s not one wh o did not a cknowledge POLI TI CS AGAI N 141

' his greatness and applaud him to the echo .

Many did not know him, and when they saw

the kind of man he is , they were not sur ” - prised that O hio loves him . Governor elect

McKin l ey of O hio , was also one of the speakers

at the meeting . After the claims of each city for the National

Convention had been heard , Minneapolis, Minn . , 7 h was decided upon, and the time , the t of 1 8 2 9 . June , ’ Upon father s return from Washington , he was interviewed by a representative of the Gal N w e s . a s veston To the ﬁrst question , to whether H Blaine and Clarkson would oppose arrison , “ : b . e he replied Mr Blaine is a statesman , he

lie ves s in protection and reciprocity mea ures ,

not men, and no one can question his ﬁdelity

to these principles . “ r I know Mr . Cla kson well . The fact of his having accepted a position on the executive c o m mitte e without reference to what may have been

his position before the convention , is evidence

wh o that he is enlisted for the war, and those know the manly heart and loyal Republicanism

of Mr . Clarkson will never believe him capable of engaging in what is commonly known in ‘ ’ kn iﬁn politics as g . Our Democratic friends ” will learn this by the Ides of November . As to the policy of the Senate relative to “ S r f : R e ilve , ather replied The policy of the 142 I I NORR S WR GHT CUNE Y; publican party as evidenced by its stand in the last Congress is in d irect opposition to the free coinage of silver . “It is also well known that eight Republican senators representing the S ilver producing

States, voted in favor of free coinage , and I take it for granted, as Mr . Stewart has rein tr o du c e d f it his bill favoring ree coinage , is an open question whether these gentlemen will relinquish their former stand upon this subject .

We have had two acquisitions to the Senate ,

a n d M Mr . Hill from New York r . Brice from

i s Ohio . Both gentlemen , it supposed , represent the eastern idea on the silver question . This in all probability will somewhat complicate the S ituation and render it nearly impossible for any one to give an accurate idea of the situati on . “ s The Cleveland , Mills , Morri on and Car lisle faction desired to force the issue between the two great parties on the tariff question solely and avoid the silver question . “ On the other hand Hill , Gorman and Tam man y were favorable to a marked neutrality ’ ” th s i on es u ion s in e p arty att tude th e q est .

VI CHAPTER $ .

E FI G H T I N G T H LI LY WH I T E S .

I 1 892 C N the Spring of , following the ounty

m C u n e ites Convention at Beau ont , at which the y

e . had be n victorious , Henry G Baxter, chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Executive

Committee , addressed an open letter to father . Calling attention to the statistics concerning th e h c ommu n ic Negro population and illiteracy, t e a tion s tated : “ r e I There a s ome few exceptions, will admit ,

wh o men like you and Fred Douglass, have the intelligence and ability to understand and analyze the great principles of political economy

underlying the Republican platform . “ But such men as you among the Negro race

a s k are few , and may I if you can be classed as

a pure - blooded Negro $ Is there n o t some w potent , unacknowledged factor hich raises yo u in i and Fred Douglass intelligence and abil ty, over the average Negro of pure African descent $ “ There is a dangerous spirit fostering among

N th e the egroes, a desire to control party actions ,

w be n in hich they happen to , in point of umbers , s n u r u n the mo t me ou s of the Rep blica s . C an 143 144 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

they, to the exclusion of the white Republicans, ‘ ’ t Vi or Lily Whites , as the mos rulent Negroes call the earnest white Republican standa rd b ff $ earers , a ord to form a distinctly Negro party Will the whites who have so lOn g been dominant by birth , education , numbers and social dis tin ction s b $ , su mit to Negro domination “Are the Negroes prepared to prove that they are morally, intellectually and physically pre pared to control the reins of government should ” they be a bl e to seize hold of them $

This sentiment was not unknown in the North . i n In the preceding campaign Michigan , the chairman of the Republican Committee of that State declared that th e party had done enough for th e Negroes and called them insolent for requesting recognition . It was evident that the Republican party in the South , with the exception , of course , of a few

- fair minded members of the white race , meant to

o be free , at all hazards, from the Negr as a race $ ’ There were no serious objections to the few “ ” wh o knew their place , but the party control must be in the hands of the white man and he

Wa s fast perfecting organization to that end . The colored men were just as determined to pre

vent this injustice , which could only lead to

general disfranchisement . “ ‘L ’ Father declared, T h e ily White movement

146 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

curred, and in every case the Lily Whites ha d contested the Cuney delegations . w Father, claiming it a s simply a scheme to “ s ” legislate in favor of the Lily White , assailed this rule , and made a motion to seat those con testing delegates wh o held prima facie c r e den — tia l s a law that had been followed in previous — “ conventions One man attempts to dictate to “ W r . e $ this committee , he said What are he e for There are thirty-one men to transact the business of the party . There are enough honest men in th e the committee to do what is right, and to gen tl ema n who presides, I say we have no master in this country, and as far as Wright Cuney is ”

S . concerned, no laves His motion was almost unanimously carried .

The Galveston - Dallas N ews reported : The news was rushed to the impatient delegates in the Conventio n hall and the colored men roa red

S their approval . But for the plendid leader ship o f Cuney and the thorough discipline of his ‘ ’ following, the Lily Whites would have made a ” better ﬁght . “ On the second day there wa s much excite ment attending the seating of contesting dele

a tio n s g . The motion of Charles Ferguson to unseat the Fort Bend delegation was defeated 145 a : by a vote of 483 to . A byst nder remarked ‘The truth appears to be that the “Lily Whites” h ave more voices than v otes . FI GHTI NG THE “ LI LY WHI TES

e th e - a t- Befor election of the delegates large , M D n i l S H . L c a e on ock , chairman of the tate “ C : Executive ommittee , said There is no one opposed to Cuney’s being elected a delegate a t- large to the National Convention . The trouble is that Ferguson wants to go to the National Convention with a number of delegates in favor of him so as to supplant Cuney and have himself

elected as member of the National Committee .

There are to be eight delegates - a t- large elected to the National Convention , and two from each of the eleven congressional districts . These thirty delegates elect the member of the National

Executive Committee , and it is this position which Ferguson is after . Mr . Cuney will win , but if he does n ot you can put it down that no colored man will be elected in his stead . ’ In father s speech before the convention , he alluded to the unnecessary strife which had been engendered in the party in the State . He said that he had b e en f o r c e d into a contest of no seek ing of his own— in a strife which had assumed a personal attitude toward him on the question “ ” of Cuney or no Cuney . This was largely, he contended , on account of the opposition to him from the Democratic press on the assumption “ that he was leader of the Republicans . I ” “ assume , he said , no such leadership . There are too many far abler men than I in the party . Nor have I ever attempted to dictate as to 148 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

what ' should be the policy of our party in

Texas . “Still I will not stand idle and indiff erent and

see its principles prostituted for selfish purposes . I have not schemed to tie up delegations in order to rob the people of any honest expres sion of their opinions and political wishes . I feel that I can confidently leave everything to the convention and trust to its fairness in all s matters of interest to the succes of our party . “ We had a fair solution of such difficulties in our temporary organization yesterday a n d in th e election of our distinguished and fair - minded m chair an , Hon . J . B . Rector . “ in I am before you as a candidate , but even m that it is not of y own seeking . I have been forced into it as a matter of personal pride . “ When cliques determine that , by the eternal gods, Cuney shall not go to the convention , then I say it is time for the people to act upon some ‘ ’ A higher motive then downing Cuney . S to the complaint that white men have been prevented from voting for the Republican ticket because President Harrison honored me with the a p pointment of Collector of the port of Galveston ,

I do not believe it . If it is true , such men had ” better vote the Democratic ticket .

Judge Rosenthal, chairman of the committee read the report of the committee on Credentials , and a fter considerable discussion, it was adopted .

1 50 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

ven tion of his followers to meet in Dallas on 12th April , for the purpose of nominating a State ticket and of selecting delegates to the

National Convention , in opposition to the dele t gates just selected by the regular organiza ion . o After bolting, Col . Newc mb declared there “ w a s much dissension in the colored ranks on account of Cuney not being able to provide all of his ‘black cohorts’ with a position at the Custom House— the Negro will act the Trojan horse and help bring about the plan of keeping ” the Negro in the rear . ” 0 1 The Lily White convention , pursuant to C . ’ 12 Newcomb s call, was held in Dallas , April ,

1 892 con ven . It was the ﬁrst white Republican

tion ever held in the State of Texas . t In a leng hy address to the convention , Judge “ Henry Cline of Houston said in part : Do you n ot feel the strong current of your Gothic blood s tir in your veins to - day $ Are you ready to assert the spirit of white men in this country and govern it $ To do this we have to get rid of $ Negro domination . My God when I think of $ S the Austin Convention A colored man , itting

at the receipt of Customs in Galveston , a tax wa collector, told us if we did not like the y the Republican party was managed we could vote ” the Democratic ticket . He advised that the Negroes wh o wished to be Republicans s hould work separately from the whites . FI GHTI NG THE “ LI LY WHI TES ” 51

C olonel Kindred of Amarillo pre posed to r e nominate and r e - elect the good men that were

A e elected by the ustin Convention , because som of them he declared , (presumably the whites) “ were true and representative men . The white convention chose delegates to the National Con ven tion and nominated a complete State ticket ,

. A . . naming Col J Houston of Dallas, the son H of the illustrious Sam ouston , for Governor,

1 - C 0 . with Newcomb for Lieutenant Governor . ’

. H In Col ouston s address , which was decid “ l : e d y conservative , he said You must all know that I have not sought this . There are other men far more competent and I. opposed nomina tions at this time , not for any particular reasons, but because the combined wisdom of conserva ” tive men O pposed it for reasons seemingly good .

In the address to the Republicans of the State , “ ” the white convention appealed to the people “ for consideration for the new departure we have taken as a representative body of white

Republicans of Texas . We feel justiﬁed in assuming that the Republican party h a s no organization such as is recognized as requisite to constitute a political party— therefore th e necessity has arisen for the organization of th e

Republican party of Texas , independent of its past history, and upon the further recognition of the fact that only upon the intelligence and manhood of the white American citizen , can 152 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

any party in this country hope for growth

and success . “We call upon the white Republicans of the

State , and those in sympathy with the principles

r and policies of the Republican pa ty, to come to our aid and give us their assistance in building

i n up Republicanism Texas . We call upon the white Republicans of the State to organize and come to the support of our standard bearers in the coming State election

The New York Herald, in making a survey of the national situation in May , received among

: their replies , the two following despatches “ 28 1 8 2 9 . Galveston , May , The Texas delegation

is practically unanimous for Harrison . O p posed to free coinage and in favor of the McKin ” ley bill . N . W. Cuney .

28 1 892 R e Paris , Texas, May , . The white publicans of Texas are n ow thoroughly organized and will favor the most valuable m an for Presi x dent . We object to Te as federal patronage being dispensed by Negroes . We favor limited

coinage of silver and protective tariff . S . J . ” Wright . At the Republican National Convention which h wa s held on June 7t at Minneapolis, the dele gates selected by the White Republican c on ven tion appealed their case to the highest tribunal of the party— the Committee on Credentials of the National organization . They demanded

154 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

she began the conversation by asking if I was

waiting for my husband . To my laughing ex cl a

wa s mation that it was my father whom I with, “ s h e : s said Oh , Spanish girl marry when so very

we young , in the hotel thought that you were ” - a little Spanish girl bride . When I declared

my race , she cried in astonishment : But you and your father must be Spanish $ No $ Then — ” Creole surely you can not be colored .

Then continued an expression of bewildered , hazy ideas concerning the results of race a d mixture— texture of hair and shade of com u plexion , which led to a serious disc ssion of the

Negro problem .

When father came to the table , I told him “ of the incident . He said ; You did right in ” c de laring your race . He abhorred above all things the supposedly easier way of “passing for ” white , and instilled in my young brother and me a hatred and contempt for the cowardly method which is upheld by many who can suc c es s fu lly disown their Negro blood . July ninth saw us en route to Galveston via the steamship Concho of the Mallory Line . ’ Captain Risk, who was a good friend of father s , did all in his power to make our voyage a most delightful one .

A passenger of interest , Edwin Markham , said “ among other things in h is Sketch m ade at Sea “ for the New York Mail and Express : Judge FI GHTI NG THE “ LI LY WHI TES

‘ Story said, We stand the latest , and if we fail,

probably the last experiment of self- government

. H . by the people on Wright Cuney, the head of the Republican party in Texas and Collector l of the Port of Ga veston , is one of the men to k ma e the experiment successful . He is among

our passengers , returning with his daughter to ” their home and his post . ’ R e Shortly after father s return home , the w publican State Convention a s held . This con

ven tion 1 2th , which met September at Fort t — Wor h , had two objects in view the consider ation and endorsement of the National platform and to consult the best interests of Texas in the

matter of State ofﬁcials . Many important elections had been lost in

1 8 91 wa s a , the country Democr tic , and there w a s no ray of hope for the election of a Repub lican governor in Texas . u Realizing the conditions , the leading Rep bli H Mc C o r mick cans, awley, Rosenthal , Hunt , , F Webster lanagan , father and others opposed the nomination of a State ticket . They believed it for the best interests of the State to endorse one of the candidates already in the ﬁeld . The regular Democratic party of the State :

r e - h a d nominated Gov . Hogg for election , while th e progressive element had bolted and selected

Judge Clark . The two other candidates , ex “L l . e o A . H lus ive of C . J ouston of the i 156 NORRI S WR I GH T CUNE Y

L . Whites, were Thomas Nugent , Populist , and

D . M . Prentice , Prohibitionist . “ S S In pite of the plit with the Lily Whites,

the majority of the delegates were white , and the fﬁ attendance unusually large . After minor di

cu lties , temporary organization wa s completed

by the election of Hon . R . B . Hawley of Galves

ton for chairman, and H . M . Tarver of Brenham, l l c o o r e d d e e a te S . a young g , for ecretary Save the State” was the sentiment of the con

ven tio n . The majority declared that this could f be best ef ected by endorsing Judge Clark , while the remaining delegates were divided between those who favored a Republican State ticket and those who wished to “Turn Texas loose”

by instructing for no particular candidate . Concerning the proceedings of the last day of

N ews the convention , the Galveston reported “Cuney saved the day by quiet work and a well

wh o timed speech . The people were against Clark sent their people to the front and kept

n i up a c O tn u ou s cheering . Arch Cochran made a ﬂash movement and things had a squally look

judging from appearances . Behind the chair

man sat Cuney. He waited until the anti

endorsers had spent their eloquence . When c the other side h a d exhausted its eloquen e , a

long, lean colored delegate got up on a chair and ‘ ’ l wh o yelled, Cuney . De egate after delegate had been sitting as still as a wooden Indian while

158 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

R favored a straight epublican ticket , for every one knows I am a Republican and wish to uphold

Republican principles, but experience has taught me that we could not accomplish anything for Texas or our party by putting a ticket in the

ﬁeld . We have an undisputed power as a bal

lance but absolutely no power as a prime factor .

The largest vote we , as a party, ever polled in 18 90 Texas for Governor was in , when we gave

Gen . Flanagan votes . “ t I knew under existing circumstances, tha

Mr . Hogg, Mr . Clark or Mr . Nugent would be the next Governor of Texas . “ Realizingthat it was a state matter, and in no wa y connected with National politics, and real izing that every citizen of Texas owes his State a great and solemn obligation , I could not see wherein I was untrue to the National party,

r e c o m to which I belong , in advocating the m e n da tion of Judge Clark, as I thought best, to the support of the Republicans of Texas . “I examined the principles advocated by each of these gentlemen , as to the best political and material interest of the State , and when I say that , of course , I mean the best interest of each individual in his daily life . I considered the condition of every home and ﬁr e s ide— its pros

e r it t p y and ha ppiness . I los sight of personal preferences and personal prejudices . “ s It is almost usele s , at this time , to go into FI GH T I NG T H E “ LI LY WHI TES ” 1 59

s details and state speciﬁc reasons , as I hall later on do so before the people of Texas when I meet them . “ Mr . Hogg has been our Governor for two years and what has been the result $ Stagn ation

bu s m es s in , no new enterprises , every industry paralyzed , money driven from the State , the money market in the hands of a few at the expense of the many— this to such an extent that the rate of interest has gone up to 10 and 12

. d per cent , so that Texas to ay is doing business at pawn shop rates . Many if not most farmers are borrowers, and it is strange to me that they a n d wh o their fellow citizens , are thinking peo ple , cannot or do not see the injuries inﬂicted upon them by the reckless class of legislation adopted by the present administration , all of which goes to prove the total incapacity of the administration to conduct the government in the interest of the whole people . “ is I objected to Mr . Nugent because he in line

a with Mr . Hogg but a few steps removed tow rd — i socialism and communism for nstance , the Government ownership of railroads and the sub treasury . His principles s eek to undermine our

fer whole system of business , which has existed i years, and under wh ch our country has become great and strong , and made itself the foremost m a ong the nations of the world . “ I twa s therefore clear to me for the foregoin g 1 6 0 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY r easons and others too plain to mention that the best thing for the Republicans to do at this junc

the ture, important to all the vital interests of

State , was to refrain from putting a State ticket in the ﬁeld an d lend a helping hand to that element most likely to remove the disastrous ff e ect of the Hogg Hurricane , universally admit ted to be the worst which h as ever swept over

Texas . “The Convention has now passed into history and the atmosphere has cleared, and looking dispassionately at its work I am more than ever

don e fully convinced that it has a wise , saga c iou s and patriotic piece of work which will redound to its credit through all the coming years . It seems to be forgotten by many persons that this i s not the ﬁrst time our party has u deemed it best to su pport an o tsider , as it were , for Governor , and this too when the dark clouds o f business depression were not lowering over our State . “The Republican party is not a cast iron insti

u tio n t , it is reasonable , ﬂexible , liberal and patriotic , and has given an example of wisdom and devotion to Texas in this matter of which every Republican has cause to feel proud . “In conclusion let me say The Republicanparty has clothed itself with a new dignity which should be worn by every member of it with pride and th e pleasure . At a single stride you have gone to

162 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

L AW . The only way to stop lynching is to build

up a healthy public sentiment all over the State ,

th e which will condemn it as a crime against law,

humanity and God . “What I have been to you and the party in the pas t twenty - two years o f my public life I

shall be to you in the future . Every hope we ‘ have is interwoven with the life of Texas . Let ’ us have peace , and through industry and educa tion and loyalty to our home make it what God and nature designed it— the grandest common ” wealth of them .

Discussing a brief which Gov . Hogg submit

N ews ted to the people , the Galveston , in an edi “ r i l 2d : to a . of Oct , said Whatever may be said

n of Mr . Cuney , his language in public discussio

is notably that of a gentleman . Admitting that

Cuney, Clark and their respective adherents

were willing , in a mortally dangerous emergency, to meet each other half way a s patriotic citizens

to rescue and redeem Texas , if need be at the

s acrifice of their respective parties , where is the reproach of such subordination of love of party to love o f country in such an emergency $ Is it O pprobrious for Texans to be first of all for the salvation of Texas $” The Colorado (Texas) T imes said : Of late the Galveston N ews seems to have a mighty fine opinion of the Republicans— it depends upon them to s ave the State $ And with the Negro FI GHTI NG THE “ LI LY WHI TES ” 163

$ L at the head of that party too ord, upon what evil times have we fallen $”

The N ews immediately replied : You have

survived them a good while . The Negro vote has ” controlled Colorado County ever since the war . This contest for Governor wa s one of the most e xciting ever held in the State . Senator Coke H started the battle cry for ogg , with the S logan ’ “ ” C s — of the three Clark, Cuney, and the Coons .

There were no dull moments in the campaign . F ather constantly traveled, making many politi

~ cal speeches . Souvenirs of the campaign found

their way to our home ; one the tall gray hat ,

insignia of the Clark followers . It was rightfully charged that the Negroes

were supporting Gov . Hogg . A number of the

colored Republican . voters could not be per

s u a de d to vote for a Democrat , though the candi

a date be Progressive , while in a few cases , the

motive , unfortunately, was not that of p arty

loyalty . The Populist party, in the State as in

the country at large , made further division of

the vote of the two old parties , and thus the State wa s carried for the regular Democrats by Gov

r n r e o Hogg . 18 93 In , when Grover Cleveland had been

inaugurated President of the United States, and the appointment of father’s successor for

r e r e Collector of Customs was expected , the p

n t ti s e a ve men of the city, Democrats and Repub 164 NORRI S WRI G HT CUNEY

lic a n s , sent a petition to the Secretary of the

Treasury at Washington , asking for his retention as long as a Democratic administration could “ consistently maintain him there , and added, We s owe it to fairnes and candor, to say that the ofﬁce has been managed admirably ; in every dep artment the utmost courtesy has always w been shown , and where needed, illing aid to facilitate our business with promptness, intel li n c . ge e and care . Some of us endorsed Mr Cuney at the time of his appointment ; all of us endorse him as an able and faithful servant ” at the approach of his probable retirement . The S ignatures appended were those of men ‘ wh o r ep r e s en te d the wealth and business interests h of the District, and t ier friendly act of endorse

wa s ment , under the circumstances, greatly com m en te d on . At the appointment of his Democratic succes

o r f il S , father retired from o fice with the good w l and best wishes of all the patrons of the Cus ffi 1 tom House . After leaving o cial ife , father r continued the business of stevedoring . Late , u entering the business of b ilding contracting , he became one of the firm of Clark and Company . Among the buildings contracted for and erected were the Waller County Court House and the

M . E . (White ) Church of Houston , regarded as one of the ﬁnest structures in the State 1893 O n th e ﬁrs t of January, , I wrote father

166 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

suggestion put into effect by the ﬁrst of next ” month . m N w A clipping fro the Galveston e s of Feb . “ 2d : 1 893 read February ﬁrst , three free night schools were established in Galveston by the

Board of School Trustees . The attendance ,

double what had been expected, demonstrated ” the need of these institutions . There were two schools for white and one for colored pupils .

Much praise is due Pres . R . B . Hawley of the th e school board a n d Supt . Cooper, who made l resu tp os s ible . CHAPTER XVII .

LI N I N G U P FO R AT T LE B .

U RI N G D the following year , there were sus p iciou s actions on the part of those wh o were supposed to wield powerful inﬂuence within

lie a the Republican party, that led to the be f th t there were plans on foot to make another strong effort to turn the party organizatio n over to the “ ” — s a lien body the Lily White Republican . A 1 6 18 4 9 . . . In an interview on pril , , Hon N B

a E x e cu Moore , Chairman of the St te Republican “L ” tive Committee , asserted of the ily Whites “ that there were no better or more patriotic R e publicans in the State than the men wh o diff ered

i n 1 8 92 h with us . These men will re unite wit

u s u s . It is going to be but little trouble for to harmonize . Representatives of the opposing factions h ave conferred with me and in every s instance , I have found them , like us , anxiou

for a : settlement of the differences upon some

a ll basis honorable alike to , and humiliating ”

o . . t none Of the result , I feel assured “ ” The Lily White Republicans , with the pros

e r e - p e ts of union , perfected their plans for party 167 168 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

control in the State . In May, Chairman Goodell “ ” of the State Lily White Republican E x e cu tive Committee , issued a call indorsing the “ ” census plan of organization , frankly proclaim ing “the idea is to separate the races in primaries as they are in schools , churches and railroads , and to give them a ﬁxed and certain r rep esentation .

N ews Father was asked by a reporter, what ff he inferred from the condition of a airs . He “ replied : In th e Republican party there are no

iﬁ r n s factions . There may be d e e c e of opinion upon questions of party policy , but we have but

r ou r iﬁ r en c es one o ganization . All d e will be adjusted in the convention hall . “ There is no common ground u pon which the ‘ ’ Republicans can stand with the Lily Whites .

That party has but one element of faith , namely ‘That the Negro shall always remain in a state

$ of tutelage , immature and unﬁt to exercise any political privilege but that of : blindly voting the party ticket , or furnishing the victims at election riots and supplying the article for sec

ion l i t a hatred . Any assumption of ndependent ‘ ’ political thought is offensive to the Lily White and any Negro pretending to distinction in the ’ party is met with furious den unciation . who can say the Negro is Republican for the ofﬁce $

He evidently does not get them . “The basis of representation has always been

1 70 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

12th ' on June , I am unable to state . It is belive d that the occasion will witness a gathering of the wisdom and brains an d energy of the party

a such s has not been seen for years , and it is possible that from the wisdom and lofty patriot ism assembled there may emanate some plan by which a reconciliation may be effected and the party strengthened for the battles of the ’ future . Cuney s presence will undoubtedly have a large inﬂuence upon some members of ’ c wh o Judge Moore s ommittee , have hitherto I been accustomed to his manipulation , but believe the majority of the white leaders and the better element of the colored people have , for some time past , been quietly undergoing a change of sentiment in regard to the eﬁe ct of Cuney’s control upon the future prospects of ” the Republican party of Texas . Father was not a member of the Republican

h a d State Committee , but he been named in the 21 Galveston County convention held Aug . , as a delegate to the State convention which was to meet at Dallas . Differences had risen between the colored R e publicans of the county over the representation in the State convention , but with the exception of a few disgruntled members wh o attempted an ineffective S plit , the trouble was amicably

adjusted . This was not difﬁcult since the two wings were attached to the same principles . The LI NI NG U P FOR B ATTLE 1 7 1

ﬁnal compromise was the one originally pro posed by the C u n eyites ; the anti - Cuney faction

accepted the chairmanship and two - thirds of the

Executive Committee , while they conceded two thirds of the Dallas delegation to the Cuney wing .

The State convention met at Dallas on Aug . 28 h 800 t . , with about delegates in attendance In the opening address made by chairman N . B . “ ” Moore , he asked that the Lily Whites return to the fold and extended them a welcome . The

ﬁrst cry of fusion , strange to say , came from a Negro delegate , L . M . Sublett , the colored

L n n n Hogg leader of Mc e a C ounty . He was answered by a spontaneous cry of No fusion $ No fusion $ Put him out $” In the session held by the Executive Commit i tee to perfect temporary organizat on , Webster

Flanagan, candidate of the Cuney wing , was

- n i C u e te . defeated by the anti y , Wilbur F Craw wh o . ford , was named as temporary chairman This ﬁrst defeat for the C u n eyites was fol lowed by one which was considered more dis astrous . During the afternoon session , the appointment of Committees on Permanent O r

a n iza tio n g , Credentials, and Platforms and Reso lutions were announced by Mr . Crawford . In reply to protests , he stated that he had appointed

b e those deemed the wisest . But one member of the Committee on Credentials was said to be 1 72 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

known as friendly to father . Prospects looked “ r e - bright for the friends of harmonious union . ’ At the close of the day s proceedings, the “ press with ﬂaring head- lines of Black eye for ” Cuney, reported that Cuney was routed, foot, horse and dragon $”

On the following day, when the convention

assembled, the Committee on Permanent Organi za tion reported the appointment of Webster

Flanagan as permanent chairman . He was S received with a plendid ovation . Much time wa s consumed by the report of the Committee on Credentials and the subsequent decision of

m M D n l . c o a d contests Willia H . , a young col R wa s ored epublican of Kaufman County, who now rising into prominence , carried his point in the Navarre case . The ﬁght between the $ Rentfro and Maris factions was decided favor

ably for Rentfro and, after a sharp ﬁght, the Galveston County (Cuney) delegation was seated .

A motion was ma de to nominate a State ticket .

Ma kems on Judge Wm . K . of Williamson received the nomination for Governor by acclamation .

R . B . Rentfro wa s nominated for Lieutenant

Governor, while A . H . Colwell, a colored dele

wa s o . gate of Brazos, n minated for Supt of

Public Instruction .

In a letter written by Hon . Charles W . Ogden of San Antonio in which he declined the use of

1 74 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

ﬁnally appeared upon the platform to the delight

of his friends who gave him a rousing reception .

Cuney proceeded to second the nomination of Dr . Grant and incidentally branched o ff in a scath ” ing arraignment of the present machine .

s Other peeches followed , in which the con “ ven tion was urged not to be carried away by the ’ ” S iren s voice nor driven by the whip . When the r oll was called it was found that Dr . Grant wa s elected Chairman of the Sta te Executive v 3 68 247 Committee by a ote of to . Wm . Edgar E aston , a colored Republican and friend . of father was named Secretary of the State C o m i m tte e .

The press head- lines were changed to read

The Black and Tans , led by Wright Cuney, w o n everything they fought for in the Convem tion . The permanent organization of the con ven tion , the State ticket personnel, the Executive Committee management for the next two years ’ were all shaped to Cuney s liking . His oppo n en ts discovered that Cuney could not be downed and the ﬁght against him for the time being ” wa s abandoned . It wa s known that father was not without

o wn e nemies within his race , and this fact

2 1895 : E h o . caused the c , of Jan , , to say The man wh o attempts to belittle Cuney to reach the climax of his own ambition as Republican leader of this State , injures his cause , destroys sym LI NI NG U P FOR B ATTLE 1 75

pathy and becomes a wreck as soon as his selﬁsh

purposes are made known , for Cuney is woven and interwoven into the very hearts of the people

- of Texas . His name is a by word in the home

t e u of every Negro in h State . What Mr . C ney

d . is to ay, it will take the life time of more

than one man , for any other Negro in the State ” to reach . In February of this year occurred the death

of the statesman and noted man of color, Fred e rick Douglass . Father delivered the oration

at the memorial services held in Galveston . He had an unbounded admiration for Mr . Douglass , whom he considered not only a great moral and

social reformer, but one of the greatest men of his time . On March 26th father was nominated for Senator from the Seventeenth Senatorial Dis triet , an honor which he declined . His business n ow demanded considera ble travel in the State and political matters required thought and attention , yet he found time for active interest in the founding of an Orphan’s Home for colored children at Mexia , and to consider the needs and progress of the colored educational institutes in the State .

In June , when I returned home for my vaca tion from the Conservatory in Boston , via the

wa s dis a Mallory Line from New York , I p pointed to s ee father alone on th e wha rf to meet 1 76 N ORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

me . While impatiently awaiting the docking of the steamer, I called out greetings to father “ — and asked ; Where is Mother how is Sh e

I could not catch his reply, but noticed that he — turned his head away . I was afraid and my heart ached . Mother had suffered for years from tuberculosis, but enjoying yearly travel and ten der e s t a care , she was always cheerful and ctive , and was always ﬁrst to welcome me after a long absence . Mother greeted me a t the door of our home a a ff she was m king brave e ort , for my sake , to be herself, but I immediately saw that her health wa s now in a condition to cause anxiety . The atmosphere of Galveston is heavy and

s o damp , we did not remain long at home . A t visit to San Antonio , in the wes ern part of the State , had proven beneﬁcial before , and here, to our great joy, mother rapidly improved .

ni Life was very happy there . San Anto o , a

an piece bitten out of Old Mexico , is full of old, quaint charm . The people are lovable and my

h o mother w was Still a young woman, was the

dearest of companions .

When we had been there a number of weeks, a friend persuaded us to take a little journey to e Mexico . We wer not very far from that coun — ’ try a night s journey brought u S to the Mexi

can border . We visited Monterey, Topo Chico “

Springs and Saltillo . Mother enjoyed the won

CHAPTER XVIII .

T H E I R S T E FE AT F D .

BE FO R E many months h a d passed father was hurled into one of the most bitter contests of his

. 1 896 life Anticipating the campaign of , he supported Wm . B . Allison of Iowa, against Wm .

M cKin l e y of Ohio for the nomination .

James S . Clarkson of Iowa , loyal and of abid ’ ing friendship , was working for Mr . Allison s

McK in l e interests in the Eas t . The y forces

l r h n a e s i . were under the e d p of Marcus A Hanna . a Mr . Croley in his recent biography of Mr . Hann “ 1 895 n states that in , Mr . Ha na rented a house in Thomasville , Georgia, where he and Mr .

McK in l e y met all comers, regardless of color, and collared the Southern delegates on the ” quiet . But Mr . Hanna found it impossible to swerve Wright Cuney of Texas ; a fact that Mr . Hanna did not forget when he acted as Chair man o f the National Committee d uring th e

M cK in l ey campaign . ’ It was Mr . Hanna s desire that the manage

McKin l e ment , in Texas, of the y candidacy for the pres idential nomination , should be in the 1 78 T H E FI RST DE FEA T 1 79

1 895 hands of father . In March , , Joseph P . Smith wrote father from Newport “ Am here with Governor McK in l ey as guest of Hon . M . A . Hanna, of Cleveland, who asks me to write and extend you a most cordial invita tion to visit him here prior to Wednesday, March 20th . He desires to confer with you regarding matters of mutual interest and will be much pleased to renew the acquaintance he formed with you at the National Conventions of 1888 1 895 and . Please write or wire me on receipt of this note whether you can come or not and ” when . 1 6 8 95 On March , 1 , Mr . Hanna sent father the following telegram from Thomasville , Ga . “Can you meet General William Osborne for important political conference Pickwick Club

Hotel, New O rleans, next Tuesday , March Nine ” - n h . te e t . Please wire answer to day ’ s Father s an wer was, “ My family ill in San Antonio and much a s

I would like to meet Gen . Osborne I dare not ” leave home . Would greatly like to see you here .

Thereupon Hanna wrote this letter , “R ’84 ’88 emembering you in and , I have felt anxious to have a talk with you about ’96 and h O p e I may ﬁnd that you are favorable to our Governor (McKin l ey ) . Jim Hill of Mississippi has been here and was going to New Orleans

soon . I told him I wished he would run over 18 0 NORRI S WRI G H T CUNEY

to Galveston and see you , that he might give you

S my ideas as to the ituation . Jos . P . Smith, our Ohio State Librarian , is with the Gov .

acting as his sec . He tells me that his wife is in Galveston on a visit to his parents and that he is going after her some time next

month . So you will probably see him an d any thing he may say to you will be ‘from the book’ —I have done no missionary work in Texas as I have had the feeling that you would be for McK in l ey and I fully appreciate the value of

your leadership .

Upon his arrival in Galveston , Mr . Hill breakfasted with father and an intimate group

wa s of friends . As mother out of the city , I ’ acted as hostess . I well remember Mr . Hill s disappointment at being unable to p ersuade

K in l father to join the M c ey forces .

a On being informed of his attitude , Mr . Hann again wrote to father in the following terms : “I will say to you frankly that I am very

. anxious to, have you take charge of Gov Mc ’ K in l e s y interests in Texas , which I feel should

soon receive some attention . I appreciate that it is something of a task to fully perfect an

organization and that there would be expenses,

etc . , which no one should be asked to bear alone . Then as to the proper men from whom to a s k assistance in the several Dist ’s— I will gladly

c o - operate in all this and write personal letters

NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

: sembled , the press reported Mr . Cuney appears to be the central ﬁgure and no man is more

eagerly sought than he . There seems to be a sort of concentrated ﬁght against the noted Gal

ves ton ia n , but so far he is holding his own , and ” says he will stand pat , come what may . It had been further rumored that there was a well matured plan of the McKin l ey followers

to capture the convention by physical force , if

need be , and thus compel the Cuney followers

to take the attitude of bolters . The concentrated manner in which the atta ck in the convention

wa s ﬁnally made , seemed to conﬁrm this . 24 On March , the State Convention met at

s Austin . The attendance wa the largest in the history of the party in the State . It was notice able for the number of intelligent young col

D n l Mc o a d . . ored politicians : Wm . H . , W E

Mc o . . . C L King, S . C y , Webster Wilson , B t Kin h ion W . . c . . , M M Rodgers , H Ellis, Emme t

J . Scott , and others , as well as the largest white contingent ever seen at a Texas Republican

State Convention .

Among men of prominence were R . B . Rent W m fro , R . B . Hawley, Eugene Marshall, . k M m n . a e s o . K . , A J . Rosenthal, Thad Bell, E ff H . Terrell, Webster Flanagan, C . G . Cli ord

McK in l e and W . B . Brush . There were y emis 1 C 0 . r ies . s a too , on hand, Col Herrick and Pol lard, ostensibly passing through the State . T H E FI RST DE FEAT 183

Many distinguished Democrats appeared as vis

it r - o s : G o v . . Ex Hogg , Gov Culberson , Treasurer

Wortham and Adjutant General Mabry . Prior to the calling to order of the c o n ven ff tion , the Reed and Allison forces e ected a com

- bination . Of the ante convention proceedings “ the San Antonio Exp r ess sa id : Interest has

e been int nse all day, but in the midst of it all,

Cuney appears smiling and serene , and is watch

ing every movement with an eagle eye . Presi dential candidates seem to be a seconda ry con sideration and it has narrowed down to a ﬁght

a t of the combined leaders ag ins Mr . Cuney . Late last evening Cuney discovered that some of the leaders had combined against him , so after a conference between him and Chairman

Grant , he threw down the gauntlet by declaring

a himself a candidate for Temporary Chairm n . ’ Father s position was comprehended by his “ : declaration The way to have peace , by the ” ’ eternal gods, is to ﬁght for it . Dr . Grant s

attitude caused surprise , for father had made one of the hardest political ﬁghts of his life

a 18 94 at D llas in , to give Grant the chairman I t ship . was known , therefore , that Grant was

under obligation to him . “ Tell Mr . Cuney I will give him one hour to withdraw as a candidate for Temporary Chair ’ ’ w a n a s . a man , Dr Gr nt s reply to father s “ n o u n c em en t of his candidacy . This doubtless NOR R I S WR I G H T C U N E Y

sounded grandiloquent to Grant , said the Ex press, and it was proud incense to his soul , but he paid dearly for the pleasure he got from ” it . Preceding the opening of the convention the

Executive Committee convened . From one of ’ o the windows of father s headquarters , just p p o s ite the building in which the State Executive

Committee held their meeting, I witnessed the excited eagerness with which the vast crowds about the place awaited the reports of the delib e r a tion s of the Committee .

At the close , when it became known that the Committee had voted to recommend father as m Temporary Chair an , friends surrounded him ,

a s as he appe red on the treet, to convey to him the news of his victory . There were cries of “ Cuney has won $” and such wild enthusiasm that he was caught up in the arms of friends and carried away amid deafening yells . W $ hen the convention assembled , the report of the executive committee recommending father f or wa s Temporary Cha irman read . The vote

1 1 1 McK in l in the Committee was 7 to . The ey delegates , bitter over the action of the Executive

Committee and , at the same time , desiring to make a test of their strength a s against the

- Reed Allison combination , proposed J u d g e Rosenthal as a substitute for temporary chair ’ in A wa s man, father s stead . vote at once taken

18 6 NOR R I S WR I G H T C U N E Y

of the Reed followers , requesting each of them to make suggestions to him of names of members for the various committees .

C r e den Owing to the great many contests, the i l t a s Committee had a most laborious task . Out of a total membership of thirteen there were

McK in l three or four ey men on the Committee .

In nearly every case passed on , however, the cases were settled by a pra ctically unanimous U vote . p to the time of the ﬁnal adjournment of the committee , there had been no mention of a minority report .

r e - On the assembling of the convention , it w a s Mc K in l e found that the y delegates had , as wa s rumored , entered the hall and taken posses sion of the prominent sea ts immediately in front

o h of the p latform, enabling them seriously to s truct the proceedings . The report of the Com mitte e on Credentials was presented and a mo tion for its adoption was made by Eugene Mar

f c n o a s e o de d f shall Dall s , and promptly So me one then offered to present a minority report ; as no minority report had been made when the committee adjourned, and as it was learned that the s o - called minority report had been prepared subsequently to the ﬁnal a d

o u r n m en t j of the Credentials Committee , by delegates wh o were not members of the com m itte e , the temporary chairman declared it out of order, stating that the only question before T H E FI R sT DE FE AT 1 8 7

the house was the adoption or rejection of the

unanimous report of the committee . He further s uggested that if it was desired t to discuss the repor of the committee , half an

hour S hould be given to each side , and that then a vote should be taken on the adoption of the r eport .

McKin l e The y delegates, noisy and boisterous,

repeatedly demanded the s o - called minority r e

o f port . The delegates the Reed and Allison combination constantly clamored for a roll c a ll

McK in l e on the previous question , but the y men deﬁantly shouted that a roll call should not be had , and then with noisy demonstrations , attempted to block the proceedings of the con

en tion v .

The chairman put the motion for a viva voce

w s vote on the previous question . The motion a

“ McKin l e at last adopted . The y delegates laid much stress on this question of a s o - called i minority report of the Committee on C r e den tia l s r e , and the refusal of the chairman to c eive it , and charged that father was arbitrary and unfair in his ruling . While these p r e c e e din gs were going on in the convention there wa s much confusion and ,

McK in l e on the part of the y delegates , yells and interruptions . It was now plainly seen that the opposition to the combination , bitter over their r k defeat , was dete mined to obstruct the wor 188 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY of the convention and by violent methods pre vent any action .

M k n . m o . . . a e s E H Terrell, W K , Henry C .

Ferguson and father were elected delegates - a t large to the National Convention , and C . D .

Keyes , F . W . Gross , J . C . Cain and R . B . Smith

- a t- were elected alternates large . The Committee on Permanent Organization made a unanimous report by which fa ther wa s made permanent chairman of the con ven tion , in spite of the fact that there were a number of McKin l ey delegates on the co m mitt e e . A motion to endorse the candidacy of Gov.M c Kin l ey for the presidential nomina tion w s a defeated . The Mc Kin l ey delegates now attempted to

o s s s e s s io n ‘ take violent p of the stage , seize the chairman’s table and forcibly take possession of the convention . It was actually necessary for the police of the city to interfere and compel the delegates to return to their seats .

On the adjournment of the convention , the

McKin l e 250 300 y followers, a group of or men , without credentials of any kind, immediately r held a convention . Richard Allen , colo ed, of

wa s . Harris county, made temporary chairman “

John Grant , Frank Hamilton , R . L . Smith , and

Dr . W . E . Davis were elected delegates to the

National Convention at St . Louis . The delegates

McK in l e were instructed to vote for Gov . y and

19 0 NOR RI S WR I GH T CU NE Y

lately of Chicago , with whom father had had an 1 884 altercation at the Chicago convention in , but who was now friendly toward him . As a reminder of his identity, father, turning to me “ said in an undertone formerly of the Gazette , you know It then dawned upon me just wh o the gentleman was , and I exclaimed with the “ t : houghtlessness of youthful pride Oh , and I ” — have the cane yet the wea pon with which father had worsted him in the ﬁght . I had no sooner S poken than I realized the unkindness of such a reminder . The delegates, amused at my dis c o m ﬁtu r e , saved the situation by bursting into r oars of laughter, in which they were joined

n by father and eVe Mr . B . himself . The contest resulting from th e ‘ two State con ven tion s o n ven was carried to the St . Louis C tion . There were many conjectures as to the outcome . The majority felt that the regular

- - delegates a tlarge would be sustained .

‘ r min n R u . o e t e b Mr . George M Pridgen , a p p “ : lican of Cuero , said I am unable to compre hend how any men pretending to be intelligent a n d honorable , could go into a convention in good faith and lend their assistance in electing a temporary chairman to preside over them , thereby expressing their conﬁdence in h is hon esty and integrity, and raise a howl after they fail to gain their point .

. “ ’ Cuney s victory wa s simply the result of T H E FI RST DE FEAT 1 9 1

brain versus boodle , and Cuney will be sustained

by the St . Louis Convention . The best lawyers ' in Austin say Cuney’s rulings as temporary chairman Were in accord with strict rudiments ” a of parliamentary t ctics .

McD n l . o a d Mr , a colored delegate of prom “ in en c e : m a t , said They y talk abou Cuney all

they want to , but Cuney did not buy votes as

McK in l e n o w the y men did . They are busy

off l n paying the delegates they bought ast ight .

They were shrewd enough , however , not to pay

the money until they had secured the goods, and

for this I give them credit . I never in all my life s a w anything more bold and yet they are the ” cattle that are abusing Mr . Cuney .

Previous to the convention , father had said to a reporter of the San Antonio Express : ‘They have not enough money to buy the con ven tio n against me . I am going before the next legislature to ask for the enactment of a law which will put in the penitentiary every ” man who tries to bribe a delegate .

Before going to St . Louis , father visited Wash in to n an d g , D . C . He had long been interested H hopeful for the success of oward University, the institution for colored youth founded by

. 0 . Gen 0 . Howard which is situated in that

city . ff It was due to his e orts , through friends in

p Congress, that the University was given eces 1 92 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

a s ary ppropriation, and continued to be a

Government school . In appreciation of his mastery of the ‘arts of high living and noble thinking” he was given by Howard University, at the commencement 18 6 9 . in , the honorary degree of Master of Arts

194 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

city came up before the National Committee ” at Washington last December , he said to a “ representative of the press , I opposed St . Louis because of the prejudice here against the col h ored man . I had a d some experience at the ’ Planters once myself, and felt certain that every

Negro who applied for admission at a St . Louis hotel at this time would receive S imilar treat

ment . “ I told friends of St . Louis there , that I had

an d no objection to their city , that I preferred

it as a convention city to Chicago , Washington ,

Pittsburgh or San Francisco , in all respects .

Three St . Louis hotel men, the proprietors of

three of your largest hotels , including the ’ Planters and Southern, came to me and pledged

me that if St . Louis got the convention they would see that the doors of the best hotels of the city were opened to black as well as white

delegates . “One of the three deciding votes on the fourth

ballot was cast by myself . I changed from

San Francisco to St . Louis , with two others, and the convention is to be held here in con s equence . “ I believe the gentlemen o f your local com mitte e , as a whole , acted in good faith in mak

Se e . . ing those promises, but you the result St Louis will be injured more than you would s up pose by this failure to keep its promises . THE NATI ONAL CONVENTI ON OF 1896 195

At the meeting of the National Committee

during convention week, this matter was brought

up with the result that the Southern , Laclede , L St . Nicholas and indell hotels agreed to ae com

m o da te the colored delegates . 1 5th On June , before the opening of the con ven tio n , the Grant delegates held a meeting

e McKin l e which was composed entir ly of y men .

- Being anti Cuney in sentiment , Dr . Grant was elected for the position of National Committee

man for the State of Texa s . 1 7th On June , the Texas contest came before i the National Committee , wh ch was controlled

M cKin l e by y men . The decision wa s against the delegates elected in the regular Sta te con ven io n McK in l e t . The y men had captured the

Credentials Committee , and their control was conﬁrmed when a resolution offered by Hep

o f burn Iowa , one of the Allison supporters , that the committee send for the papers in a ll contests , was lost . Among the 58 contests brought before the

Credentials Committee , was that of Texas . The action of the National Committee was , of course ,

- - at- conﬁrme d . The Allison Reed delegates large were unseated by a vote of 31 to 20 and the Me ’ d s a Kinley delegates recognized . Father s i p pointment was keen and was aggravated by th e fact that he was treated unfairly .

In the National Committee , Gen . Grosvenor 196 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

fﬁ M i l of Ohio , the o cial calculator of the cK n ey ’ campaign , at a moment of father s absence when he knew fa ther would have no o p p o r tu n it y to reply to his cowardly assault , made in his Speech of O pposition to the Allison - Reed delegates , a personal attack accusing father of l politica dishonesty .

wh o Mr . Thomas Fortune of New York, saw . “ a : father just after the happening , s id Gros ’ ven o r s attack was for twelve hours the talk of

St . Louis among the assembled Republican hosts, for it was known that Cuney was always the soul of political honor . “ a n Congressman Grosvenor is old man , with long gray hair, and ﬂowing beard . He may

i t not know it , but he owes to me , that he was

not publicly whipped in the streets of St .

Louis . Soon after he had made his terriﬁc ar

‘ r a i n m en t g of Cuney, I met the latter at Plant ’ wa s ers hotel . The Black Flagger trembling with suppressed rage and indignation , and his ’ brown eyes fairly blazed in his head . Cuney s

I n eyes were most expressive . repose they were insistently nervous and restless ; under any sort

of excitement they fairly danced . The African,

Indian and Anglo - Saxon blood in him formed a combination which made him almost in vin c

ible in a fair ﬁght of whatever sort . Indeed,

he wa s a man of ﬁerce courage .

, “ wa Cuney declared in his cool, deliberate y

198 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

of men who have taken the wounds and fought the battles of the Republi ca n party when he was

voting the Democratic ticket . “For twenty years I have stood in the van and taken all the blows of the enemy in a State where it costs men a great deal more to stand up for their political convictions than it does ’ in Gen . Grosvenor s State . “For ten years I have served as National Committeeman from Texas in the councils of the Republican party . My word has been taken as lightly by this body as if I were a raw r e c r u it s , a discredited stranger, a man of no tand ing

L a et me tell you , gentlemen , you m y go to my political enemies in the city where I have spent all my years S ince I became a man , and ’ they will tell you tha t Wright Cuney s name stands as a synonym for commercial integrity and for personal honor ; that he has never broken w a law against good citizenship , good fello ship and humanity since he has lived among them , and that any and every Democrat of property in the community in which he lives , is willing ” to go on his bond . Can the upstart , (pointing “ $ to Grant ) , show a like record “

. I But waiving personalities , stand on the d . a n broad ground of right I , my fellow dele gates , have shown a title to our seats by every rule of right procedure . If you strike us down, T H E NA T I ONAL CONVENTI ON OF 189 6 19 9

$ you do it because we ha ve dared to assert our manhood by daring to support the minority

c andidates in the convention . You may stab

me and my colleagues , but remember when you

do , the knife may rebound and enter the vitals ,

not only of the Republican cause in Texas, but ” that of the na tion as well . Indicative of the sentiment in the State of A Texas , regarding the unseating of the llison

Reed delegates, was the following editorial which appeared in one of the largest Democratic

n E x r es s dailies of Texas, The San A tonio p “ n n N . W . Cu ey, the colored Republica leader of

S t. L . Texas, met with an unkind fate in ouis

H . e has been downed, but not at home “ The entire Republican party of Texas wa s

unable to cope with his energy, inﬂuence or

generalship . It was only through an accident of politics that his enemies were able to call to their assistance the national leaders and de

throne , temporarily, at least , the sable states

- man . Viewed from a non partisan standpoint ,

and without race prejudice , Cuney was entitled

to a seat in the St . Louis convention . He had

the Republican organization with him . Had there been nothing at stake for the McKin l ey

managers in St . Louis, little reason would have been found wh y Cuney and his friends should not have been accorded the fruits of their l i a s . be bor As it s , he is thrown out simply 2 00 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

cause of his ﬁdelity to a minority candidate ,

Mc Kin l e and to make more room for the y forces . “ There was a world of truth in the few r e marks addressed by Cuney to his late white

admirers , and these words will not soon be for

n gotten . Such things stick i the craw of a

S Southern white man of any pirit , and the time

for harmony about which Mr . Grant talks so

glibly has gone by . It will be a war to the knife and the knife to the hilt , and Cuney will wield the machete with a skill born of the

darker half of his ancestry . “ Cuney is not dead politically . He will live to attend the political funeral of several of the politicians who traded him out of his rights at

the St . Louis convention . “A man who will stick by his friends at the risk t n o of his own future , is made of common clay, i be t white or black . Cuney could have been

seated as a delegate had he so willed it . The McK in l eyites would ha ve joyfully hailed h is a c r cession to their anks . “ Cuney had his friends to carry and his

promises to keep . He carried his friends and

went down with the ship . He kept his promises

and was derided for so doing . Many a white politician could adopt his method with a dva n

tage to himself and the party he represents . “It is well for the Republican party in Texas that a move now has been made towards the rec

2 02 NORRI S WR I GHT C U NE Y

in his boots . Gen . Payne of Wisconsin only awaits an opportunity to give you some signal

recognition . I hope that you are not living in the events that are behind . The political world is moving fast, very fast , and it seems to me , ” that a great opportunity is opening to you . Immediately after the adjournment of the

National Convention , father went to Hot

. . r e Springs, Ark , for rest While there , he c eive d a letter intimating that a reconciliation w s It a desired on the part of his opponents . “ : read, in part Your friends feel deeply with you the wound which the National Committee

s L inﬂicted upon you in its ses ion in St . ouis, and they appreciate what a gallant and noble “ l ﬁght you made before them . They also fee that their opinions as to your future action are

worthy of consideration , and should be of mate

in rial weight with you . That you S hould be ﬂu en c e d by their advice is not presuming too

a much , for they have your best interests at he rt

e as well as the welfare of the party . We b l ieve that the ﬁercest battles of the . campaign will be fought on the ﬁelds of Illinois and Indi

ana , and for you to enlist your services for the

fight, buckle on your armor and go forth to battle will not be expecting too much of you , a man accustomed to lead and to fight where the battle wages fiercest . believe that you can ‘ We be of inestimable value to the party by ofie r THE NATI ONAL CONVENTI ON OF 1896 2 03

ing your services to the party at this time , when they are most needed . “ e If agreeable to your views, w will set to work to bring about that which we have sug gested and only await your approval and acqui

s n ti e c e c e . n e o a We believe , if you so prefer, g tions to that end will come from your former ” O pponents . Father resented the injustice which had been done him, and accepted with great reluctance , the result of the contest . He refused, however, “ ” a to sulk in his tent , and entered the camp ign

Mc Kin l for ey and Hobart .

Hon . John Grant , the newly elected National

wh o Committeeman , was soon found in confer ence with the “Lily White” faction stated that he saw no necessity for two Republican parties l i in Texas, with the Nationa organ zation on the eve of a great battle and with victory in sight . “ “ r From now on , he added, the e will be a united party in Texas .

. L J . A Baker, a prominent ily White de “ c l a r e d : We have about decided to return to the regular camp and assist Grant in a dva n c ing th e best interes ts o f Rep u blicanis m in ” Texas . CHAPTER XX .

T H E LAS T AY D S .

I T was early known that there wa s to be a ﬁght made on father at the coming State con ven tion , and that much depended upon the out ’ o f come . In the event father s ultimate victory,

there would be no union with the Lily Whites . 9th On Sept . , at Fort Worth , the State con

n tio n . ve wa s . wa s held It one of importance , for the Republicans held the balance of power a n d could practically say who should control

the State Government after the coming election . Whatever the differences between the Grant and

s Cuney factions, each had in mind the succes

of the party . l Father advocated fusion with the Popu ists, S ince the combined vote of the two parties was

far greater than that of the Democrats . On l 6 h . t Aug , he had received a communication n from the National headquarters , aski g informa

tion concerning his Fusion projects .

On the scene when convention day arrived ,

were the two Hanna emissaries , Gen . A . W .

Huston, National Committeeman from In 204

206 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

1895 it is explained that, in , Mr . Ferguson r e turned from a meeting of Republican League

Clubs held in Cleveland, Ohio , committed to Mc ’ Kin l e s . y candidacy Later, in the Fourth Con

r es s io n a l g District Campaign, he was a Reed c ontestant . In opposition to Grant , he fought with the Allison - Reed combination after arriv i n g at the St . Louis convention , he became a

cKin l M ey man . Being repulsed by some of

wa s the leaders there, he , for a short while , a s - trong anti Grant man . Now, after the close of that contest , we ﬁnd him supporting Mr .

Grant . From now on, he and his brother , Henry

a . Ferguson , f vored opposite factions in the party The day preceding the opening of the con “ ven tion : , the press reported It is doubtful if there ever wa s a party in Texas S ituated as is the Republican party at this time . The rank

a and ﬁle stand loyal, but aw it action until the leaders arrive . The bold, deﬁant contingent

. A here , is that at the back of Cuney s usual, this wing is ﬁghting on the aggressive , and as fast as his friends arrive they are announcing a s traight out for E . H . R . Green for State Ch ir ” man and Cuney for temporary chairman .

Mr . Green , President of the Texas Midland R al ailroad , son of Hetty Green the famous capit ist of New York , had entered Texas politics a few years before . G ’ Mr . reen was father s choice for State Chair THE LAST DA YS 2 07

n th e ma of the Executive Committee . Among

- Cuney Green supporters were Dr . Wilmot , Eu m MeD o n W . H . gene Marshall, E . H . Terrell,

n d t ald, M . M . Rodgers a many young intelligen

colored voters . ’ In opposition to father s nomination for tem

o r a r p y chairman, the Executive Committee , of

wa s en . m which Dr Grant chairman , recom ded w . A v a Charles Ferguson pri ate caucus s held , when propositions were made to father to with

draw . He replied tha t under no circumstances would he withdraw, that he was in the ﬁght to

a ﬁnish . Again proposals for a compromise were made . He refused to listen to them . The

wa ﬁght s taken before the Convention, and father was defeated . The scene was thus described by the News “ : representative I have no interest in Cuney .

I have no interest in Grant . Thanks to a pretty ‘ I fair education and a good moral training, have no interest in the Republican party . But when the ﬁght came it was my duty to see it , and when it was ended ‘La Paloma’ with all its s sadnes took possession of me , and I hated to s e e the man die the death he did . “ It was just this way . Away back yonder

away back in the eighties , I saw this man come to the front as a leader . I saw him in many

conventions , for these were battleﬁelds where

he fought, and I never saw him quail . Time and NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

again I saw him when I thought he must go

. r down Time and again he triumphed . He e

c i h m ~ n e ve d . t e o scars He left those he fought . He h a d a certain chivalry that commended him to me , and at times his manner of wa rfare was

he to a degree sublime . And thus has gone

on , until those who had felt his blade were legion , and the time was coming when they would pull him down . “He cast his fortune with Clarkson in the Al last campaign for presidential nominations . lison was the choice of Clarkson . He became

McKin l e the choice of Cuney . The y forces

r n i z were o ga m g on a strictly black ﬂag plan .

They gave no quarter in any part of the ﬁeld . Those wh o desired to depose Cuney from the head of the Republican p a rty in this State saw their chance . They got together in a solid

phalanx . They made the fight against him and they had for their leaders the shrewdest politicians in the Republican party . “ Their leaders were not Texans . Hanna and Gros venor and Thompson of Ohio were coun l e o r . s s . They drew the map of the field They told how the moves should be made . The fight wa s a hard one . For the first time in his life , Cuney had waged a wa r in which there wa s pure science on the other side . “ He had resorted to sentiment, of which he

e . had a thorough knowl dge , in all ﬁghts before

2 10 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

and forced h im to acquiesce in the fusion pro

gram . His plan was approved by the National Com

mi e r e tt e . Before the convention, father had c eive d a letter from the National headquarters “ : at Chicago , saying Texas is beginning to attract attention and Hanna and others a r e coming to believe that something tangible may come out of the fusion with the Po p u lists and the sound money Democrats— you are the one man wh o can probably arrange ” this fusion . On the last day of the Fort Worth c on ven tion , Dr . Grant sent a letter to father suggest — “ ing that they should be friends I shall be ” glad to take your hand, he said, and walk out on the platform and convince the convention

that Ame rican manhood towers above pique . Please intimate your desires and I will meet ” them . There was a tentative reconciliation .

ff n ec es With father, a public di erence did not s ar il y result in personal feeling . ’ In Spite of the Lily Whites repeatedly ex pressed desire for afﬁliation with the regular l State Republican party, they were unwil ing to “ ” discard census plan , and they continued S their tate organization .

During the campaign , it was seen that in some a un ccountable way, the control of precinct and c ounty organization h a d gotten almost entirely THE LAST DAYS 2 11

into the hands of undesirable parties . Although

without long political experience , Mr . Green wa s a leader of courage and under his direction, the conditions fast changed . Not long after, the “ press Spoke of seeing the ﬁne Italian hand ” of Cuney in the management of party a ﬁa ir s

in the State .

R e After the National election , in which the

i . G publicans were victor ous, Dr rant insisted

upon controlling the patronage in Texas . Of is h demands, a correspondent wrote father from “ Wa shington : He graciously conceded the Post

f i n . O ﬁces my District He is so selﬁsh , he is so

‘ n u fair, he is so unpatriotic and he is so utterly

o f devoid that necessary guide , common sense , th at before he is through with his exactions he will be without friends in th e party and

without the respect of the administration , if

he has not lost that already . He goes, slowly u t w n perhaps, b surely to that goal hich i evita bly awaits all men wh o forget their ” friends .

Before many months had passed , Dr . Grant

. G quarrelled with Mr reen , carrying the disagree

ment so far as to have himself elected in Mr . ’ ff Green s stead . It was an ine ectual bolt . Dr . Grant’s lengthy and erratic public letters and addresses ﬁnally gave warning of his sad mis

— a n fortune unbalanced mind . A gentleman wh o was present at a dinner 2 12 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNE Y

1897 party in , in Washington , given by the Vice

President to bring the Hon . Mark A . Hanna, and Gen . James S . Clarkson and the Hon .

Samuel Fessenden together, has told me of an incident which illustrates quite vividly my father’s high standing and proved integrity in every form and temptation of practical politics as well as in the business world . ’ According to this gentleman s story, just as the party was sitting down to the dinner table ,

Mr . Hobart , always a congenial spirit and the life of any party, had a letter handed to him by his butler . He at once handed it over to Senator “ ou Hanna , saying, Here is a letter for y , ” Senator, from the South .

Mr . Hanna glanced at the letter and said —“ ’ ’ Oh , that s from Florida and I expect it s from

So - and - s o (giving the name of a leading colored politician in Florida) and he ’s a good fellow who helped us in the campaign for the nomi ” nation . a n d Mr . Hanna then turned to Mr . Hobart , “ surprised all present by saying , Do you know ,

we Hobart , ﬁnally captured all the Southern ’ Niggers , except Clarkson s , and especially that man Cuney and his followers in Texas . Nothing ff could touch or a ect him, either in immediate performances or in future promises . Nothing could change him from Clarkson or Allison . He went on to account for these men’s standing

2 14 ~ NOR RI S WR I GHT CUNEY

The latter two not only resented this r e

ﬂ ction e . on Mr Cuney, but neither could forget or fail to appreciate how often Mr . Cuney had fairly seen to it that a clean and honorable del e ga tion had been elected by the Texas R e publican State Convention to the National Con ven tion to support Reed , Allison and Morton .

. L Mr . Hanna and his following at St ouis by pressure on the National Committee got this legal delegation unseated , and an illegal del

i n cKin l e e a to M . g put in its place , to vote for y ’ McKin l e Thus Mr . y s ﬁrst term closed without

General Clarkson and Mr . Fessenden being brought in to muster under Mr . Hanna, as his ” allies and supporters . A number of happy events of a social as well as political nature had served to break the 1 896 strain of the aggressive campaign of . Large receptions were given in many of the cities throughout the State , by colored citizens who wished at this time to give evidence of the esteem in which father was held . Coming in the spring of 1897 from San

Antonio , where he had been called to deliver an “ ” address on The Duty of the Hour, father A stopped in ustin . My young brother Lloyd had been placed in school at Tillotson College , while I had charge of the Music Department of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute of the State H i . s of Texas . Father came often to see us THE LAST DAYS 2 15

visits were greatly enjoyed by the young blind

m en of the Institution, in whose progress father

wa s deeply interested . A bout this time , my pianoforte teacher,

Edmund Ludwig, formerly of the Conservatory l R L . for oya adies at St Petersburg, with whom

wa s I continuing my studies , had arranged for R H me a Piano ecital at the O pera ouse . Pro grams were in the hands of the printer when it dawned upon th e management of the Opera House that it would not do to allow seating of w hite and colored patrons together . They tele phoned that it would be necessary to sell tickets

to colored patrons for the balconies only . Mr . Ludwig and I indignantly canceled the contract

for the House . No hall being available , the

. L recital, with the kind assistance of Mr udwig,

was given at the Institution . I Father enjoyed the occasion and, while s S . thought he was tired , he eemed less depres ed He disapproved of the custom of wearing black

ﬁn and, ding that my mourning garb saddened

him , I discarded it whenever he came to see me . During the Christmas holidays we were the hon‘ored guests at a reception arranged by an

organization of colored citizens at Fort Worth ,

- Texas . The Fort Worth (daily) Mail Telegram , speaking of the enthusiastic reception accorded

father , noted the inﬂuence the organization S wielded politically, the progressive pirit of the 2 16 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

membership and the signiﬁcance of the occasion . “ ” “ The speeches according to this report , were

bright and well delivered . Of course Mr . Cuney was looked upon to make a happy talk and

so he did . He earnestly thanked those present for the great compliment paid him and his

dau ghter, and said at some future time he hoped ” to talk politics to them . Father had been in constant demand before the election,at the many la rge rallies where he e spoke in the inter st of sound money . The Con

r es s ion a l i g campa gn followed immediately . Being desirous of sending a Republican c on

gressman to Washington from the Tenth District , father, having refused to consider the nomination for himself, worked enthusiastically for the

. . . H . r nominee , Hon R B awley of Galveston The e wa s no white man in the State for whom he felt a deeper a ﬁe ction and he worked unceasingly for his success .

for In the midst of his travels, he stopped a few days in Austin . I saw that he was not well . He admitted to me that he had entered the cam

i n p a g against the advice of his physician , for his health was undermined by a recent attack of grippe , of which he had kept me in ignorance . I entreated him to give up his duties and stay at Austin until his health returned . This he wa s reluctant to do ; he was conducting the campaign , but he promised, that after fulﬁlling

2 18 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

of the State and country . Many of them were w good , friendly letters that I a s glad to have him receive , but more of them were petitions and letters of political importance that he could not be persuaded to neglect .

a i I now acted as his secret ry . In spite of h s

w s weakened condition , father declared that he a growing in strength and, holding his political interests , he continued through correspondence ff to take part in the a airs of the State . A number of times he was called to San

a tten i m o r ta n t Antonio to d p conferences, while he $ took great pleasure in the visits of friends wh o came to consult with him here .

At the coming of the winter, we visited San “ Antonio . Surely it is true that Southern s ouls grow responsive in this atmosphere , for ’ father s friends, numberless , were untiring in

wa s their devotion . The faithful nurse who with u s in Boerne remained with us here . During one of the wakeful nights of h is illness, a number of friends sat with him talking politics . Cautioning the men not to let father know of my nightly vigils , in order to prevent his anxiety over my broken rest, I sat quietly at the back of the house . — The night wa s beautiful e the moon n ever shone more gloriously . Awakening from a short ’ sleep , father insisted that the night s radiance wa s the coming of th e day . The men could not THE LAST DAYS 2 19

c onvince him that it was the moonlight . He lay quiet for a moment and then said in a tender ‘ ’ voice If Dolly said that was moonlight , I

wa s T h e would know it true . men told him ; “ ” Miss Maud is awake . Ask her . I had over

r an d heard the conve sation entered the room . He showed no surprise on discovering that I was i s taying up all night . I th nk he knew I suf f er e d . with him In his droll way he said , The s boy are lying to me , Dolly ; see how bright it is ; ’ $” A isn t it daylight t my reply, he laughingly ’ a sked the men s pardon for disputing them , say “ ” i n g , I was wrong, fellows ; it is moonlight .

And then for long, he commented on the beauty of the night . The next day my Un cle Joseph c a me from

Galveston with my brother and grandmother .

I twa s the third of March . Members of the family were constantly at his e bedside , but wishing to spare his aged moth r the heartrending sorrow of his closing hours, father asked that we lead her from the room . With the most remarkable control of his mental powers , father asked if the papers had come , and

$ from them I w a s forced with tear- blinded

ﬁ ir s e a a . yes , to read the latest reports of world

It w a s but a few hours before his death . Think ing that I would forget , he asked me to make a memorandum of those newspapers that had given bulletins of his condition— the Galveston - Dallas 22 0 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

w lo be N e s . , San Antonio Express, St Louis G

mo cr a t Pr es s — a D e , and the New York th t they might have proper notiﬁcation of his passing

away, and then further directed me in the care

of personal matters . $ uietly he lay for a few moments with his

head pillowed on my arm . “ — a a He whispered, My work is ended l st

farewell to the world and, drawing my face

- down to his, he kissed me good bye .

r . The brave , generous heart beat no longe

My father lay dead .

222 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY

By permission of Adjutant - General Mabry

of Texas, a guard of honor, the San Antonio — — Guards a colored militia regiment under the

n command of Capt . R . G . Ellis a d the direction

of Mr . Richard W . Wallace , acted as escort . My wishes for qu iet ceremonies could not be

fulﬁlled . Father had lived a life of public ser n O vice , and it was ﬁtti g that the last pportunity

for the people he loved to do him honor, should

not be denied . Funeral services were held on March 6th at

Galveston . Notices from the Galveston daily press read : All that was mortal of N . Wright

Cuney, the Negro politician and leader of his

wa s t k race , laid to rest in beau iful La e View

Cemetery this afternoon . The procession that followed the body to the grave was the largest seen in Galveston in many a day . Whites, as n well as blacks, joined in payi g a tribute of respect to the dead leader . “ u There thousand people , and quite a n mber of leading white citizens , gathered in Harmony

Hall to witness the ceremonies . Perhaps a thousand people could not gain admission a n d remained outside . At the remains were brought from Reedy Chapel where they had lain in state since their a rrival from San Antonio . “It was after 1 o’clock when the religious ser

o f vices began . Dr . L . H . Reynolds New Orleans , a s sisted by Rev . M . R . Moody , pastor of Reedy THE LAST RI TES 2 23

r im Chapel, conducted the exe cises, which were

pressive to a degree . “The Masonic service was conducted by Grand

McK in n f . e o Master J W . y Sherman , assisted

by Deputy Grand Master Lawrence , and Past

Grand Masters Allen and Armstrong . Mr .

Wilford H . Smith of New York delivered a eulogy

on behalf of the masonic fraternity . Music ' ” was rendered by th e R ee dy C h a p el quartette . The order of the funeral procession wa s a s follows

Mounted Police Band Ofﬁciating Ministers

Military companies ; o Excelsior Guards of San Antoni , Cocke Riﬂes of Houston Lincoln Guards of Galveston 2 Civic S ocieties ; Cotton S c r ewm en No . ’ Lo n gs h o r em en s Aid Association Knights of Pythias O dd Fellows Mason s 4 S ilver Trowell No . 7 of Houston 3 Magnolia No . of Houston 2 South Gate No . 3 4 Amity No . Grand Lodge 224 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNEY

' - r : W . . . . Honorary Pall bea ers R Wallace , I H n Tan er, H . G . Williams, and H . E . Ellis of San i Anton o , Webster Wilson, Henry Bee , Dr . J . H .

. H . a Wilkins, J Holland, James Bl ir, J . H . Pat

rick, Priest Henderson, W . R . Hill, Arthur

. . L Shephard, C J Williams, Frank Armand, ewis

Johnson, William Lane , Albert Piner, Wm .

H . olmes, Bailey Sparks of Houston , Jos Scott,

T . H . Thomas, A . B . Trowell, Prof . John R .

G . . . . an d . ibson, W D Donnell, W H Smith Alex

Green .

Active Masonic Pall - bearers : Past Masters N i ll D B h l . . e v e s e r u . George W , John , W H Love ,

Masters E . M . Russell, H . P . Whittlesey and

r l Lawrence C l eth e a .

One hundred carriages . The interment was in the family lot at Lake

View Cemetery . Messages of condolence poured in upon us from

men of distinction all over the country , while

throughout the State political organizations , charitable and religious societies held memorials and in their resolutions testiﬁed their recognition

of a life so u n s elﬁs h ly and sincerely lived . Among the many comments on father’s ability

as a business man , a politician and a leader , none gave a truer estimate of the man than those that M H L . G follow . on . R . Fulton , ayor of alveston , wrote of father in 1889 — “During the past a s a twenty years that I ha ve known Mr . Cuney

226 NORRI S WRI GH T CUNE Y

greatest political organizer and manager the Afro - American race has produced ; assuredly he was one of the most generous and courageous and at the time of his death no m an of his race was known and trusted and loved by more of the national leaders of the Republican party than

he . For years he had been a member of the

national committee , and honesty had commended him to the good esteem of the men who ha ve dominated the political destinies since the

war . “ Mr . Cuney occupied a unique place in the 1 896 life of Texas . In the winter of , I spent a few months in Texas and was his guest at Gal

veston and saw much of him . “In a State where race prejudice is almost

as strong as it is in Georgia , he was treated

almost everywhere , in places of public amuse

a c como da tion . ment and , as white men are

a treated . On one occ sion we rode out to the H Surf ouse, a very aristocratic resort , and spent c a fe a t a half hour there . His advent in the tracted the attention of all the people there , people prominent in the varied life of Galveston , who accosted him with the heartiness and courtesy of tried and true comradeship . “ ff O in a corner , a stranger , a southerner , —‘ much surprised asked his companion ; Who is ‘ ’ ’ ’ $ that yellow fellow Oh , that s Wright Cuney , ’ said in a way to settle the Black Flagger s right THE LAST R I TES 27

‘ $ s of in the pla ce . Indeed I have heard lot him . ’ He looks like a Mexican and as ﬁerce as one . ‘ ’ Oh , Wright Cuney can take care of himself . So he could ; and that wa s the general opinion ‘ ’ ’

. wa s all over Texas That s Wright Cuney, sufficient to give him a right of wa y where other men of his race would have been thrust out with

r out ceremony or mobbed, not because he e sembled a Mexican , but because he had brains

and courage and had won the leadership of , a a great party by h rd knocks and steady blows , and was a gentleman of the true southern type , generous and impulsive , so that all Texans of all races and colors were proud of him and respected him . “ The devoti on of the Afro -American race of

Texas to Mr . Cuney was one of the strongest and strangest in our politics and was such as no other man of his race h a s ever enjoyed in this a country . In most southern states , actu l leader ship has been vested in white men . Florida , Georgia and Louisiana have been exceptions to the rule and Mississippi is now ; but in none of those states did the black voters stick as closely to a .black leader as those of Texas did to Norris ” Wright Cuney . McD on a ld Mr . Wm . H . of Fort Worth , Texas , says of him —“The Negro race looked for and — needed a man worthy to lead them looked for ' wh o wh o a man was a ripe student , had the 228 NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY audacity o f genius and was a good combination

r . of hea t, conscience and brain Mr . N . W . ‘ ’ Cuney, the gallant Yellow Rose of Galveston County— this political leader with patriotism as

th air taintless as e , battled for the rights of others . He fought his political battles to pre vent arrogance from predominating over his patient brethren , and the women and children n — of his race . This man sta ds alone ancient or

n o modern degeneracy did treach him . “The white Republicans thought his high

n sta ding in political ﬁelds so impaired theirs , that they conspired to remove him in order to be

relieved of his superiority. “ No State chicanery, no narrow system of

vicious politics , no idle contest for ministerial victories sank him to the vulgar level of the

wa s great men of the race ; his object advance ,

a . his ambition , race pride and p triotism “ Without appealing to race , he destroyed his

t - party enemies wi hout corruption , he ruled the

f s Republican party o Texas . His idea wa to

make a venal a ge glorious . “ The ordinary feelings which made life amiable and indolent— those sensations which a soften , allure and vulg rize were unknown to

him . Aloof from the sordid occurrences of life

n and u sullied by its intercourse , he came into A . our system to counsel and decide , character

a so ex lted, so strenuous, so authoritative , aston

NORRI S WRI GHT CUNEY to plan wisely and then to project those plans into the minds of others with such clearness and

i s force as to secure approval, no mean power . It is the basis upon which has rested the s uccess ’ of the world s great leaders . “ wa s m n He a resourceful a . No one ever knew when he was defeated . Often when in the heat of battle some one sounded retreat, when disaster seemed traced in letters of ominous blackness on the banner which ﬂoated over his scattered allies, he would emerge at the head of a new force an d move on to victory “ n He was a intense race man . He thought and planned and hoped and fought for his race . Because of his superior intelligence and the respect in which he was held everywhere , even among the most cultured of the land, he might have drifted away from his people , as many have done but , like Moses of old , he chose rather to suffer affliction with his own people than to e njoy honors and pleasure with another ra ce . ‘ Know ye not that a great man has fallen this day in Is rael .

T H E E N D .