Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas, Part 26

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1128

USA > Texas > Dallas County > Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas > Part 26

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" H. W. GRADY."

The programme as arranged on reception and entertainment was thus announeed :

Next Friday Honorable Henry W. Grady and party will arrive in the city, and be present at the Fair ou Texas Day. The fol- lowing is the programme for their reception and entertainment:

1. An informal reception at the Windsor Friday evening from 8 to 10.

2. Saturday-A drive through the eity from the Windsor at, 9:30 a. m., reaching the Fair grounds at 11 a. m. At 11:30 a. m.

Mr. Grady will speak from the stand fronting the grand stand.

3. Between 1 and 2 p. m. a lunch will be served to the guests in the club room at the Fair grounds.

4. At 3 p. m. there will be speaking by Governor Gordon and others, the speakers to be introduced by Messrs. Gibbs, Tucker, Exall and Simpson.

The following comprise the entire recep- tion committee :

James B. Simpson, chairman; Sawnie Rob- ertson, Chas. Fred Tucker, Barnett Gibbs, Henry Exall, W. E. Hughes, W. C. Connor, J. C. Patton, C. A. Culberson, Dudley Wooten, N. W. Fairbanks, T. V. Rhodes, J. J. Eckford, W. L. Cabell, W. L. Crawford, R. E. Cowart.

MR. GRADY'S GREAT SPEECH

was made to a gathering of upward of 10,- 000 Texans, and it concerned the future of the two races, what the South owes the negro, and what his place in progress should be: the wonderful possibilities of the South.

Texas Day at the Fair was made memorable by the address of the Honorable Henry W. Grady, of the Atlanta Constitution. If there were any doubt of his popularity in Texas it were only necessary to call in evidence his magnificent audience. So great was it that had he

"A hundred mouths, A hundred tongues, An iron throat

Inspired with brazen lungs,"

the sound of his voice could not have reached the last of the multitude. The grand stand,

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

with a seating capacity of 7,000, was packed, as also was the large space in front of and under it. The gathering was estimated at 10,000, but that does not cover all who had come to hear Mr. Grady, for large bodies of people, after discovering that the could not get within hearing distance walked away re- solved to read his speech in the News. Shortly before 11 o'clock Liberati's band struck up an operatic air, which, though beautiful, did not contain the kind of fire that the crowd wanted to warm their souls at; but they were equal to the occasion, and "Dixie," uttered in a squeaky voice at the reporters' stand, went from mouth to mouth until it reached a mighty yell. The band then struck up that tune so sacred to past memories, and it was cheered at every one of its angles. As the last strains of Dixie died away Mr. Grady and the other distinguished orators mounted the stand, which, owing to hurry, and, per- haps, a little confusion, had been erected without ornamentation. Mr. Grady was in- trodnced by Mr. Charles Fred Tucker, whose speech was quite lengthy and frequently in- terrupted by calls for Grady-calls that were indicative of the impatience of the throng and not intended to be disrespectful of Mr. Tucker.

Mr. Grady began his address withont even the enstomary preface, "Ladies and gentle- men." He seemingly felt that he was ad- dressing the Sonth collectively, and that no such preface was necessary. The delivery of his address consumed about an hour and a lialf, and he throughout held complete control of lis audience, whom he swayed with marked

emotional effect, and whose applause was at times and ofttimes deafening. Ile said:

"Who saves his country saves all things, and all things saved will bless him. Who lets his country die, lets all things die, and all things dying curse him."

These words are graven on the statue of Benjamin H. Hill in the city of Atlanta, and in their spirit I shall speak to yon to-day.

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens: I salute the first city of the grandest State of the greatest government on this earth. In paying earnest compliment to this thriving city and this generons multitude, I need not cumber speech with argument or statistics. It is enough to say that my friends and my- self make obeisance this morning to the chief metropolis of the State of Texas. If it but holds this pre-eminence-and who can donbt in this auspicious presence that it will --- the nprising tide of Texas' prosperity will carry it to glories unspeakable. For I say in soberness, the future of this marvelons and amazing empire, that gives broader and deeper significance to statehood by accepting its mnodest naming, the mind of man can neither measure nor comprehend.

I shall be pardoned for resisting the inspir- ation of this presence and adhering to-day to blunt and rigorous speech, for there are times when fine words are paltry, and this seems to me to be such a time. So I shall turn away from the thunders of the political battle upon which every American hangs intent, and re- press the ardor that at this time rises in every American heart; for there are issues that strike deeper than any political theory has reached, and conditions of which partisanry has taken and can take but little account. Let me therefore with studied plainness, and with such precision as possible, in a spirit of fraternity that is broader than party limita-

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tions, and deeper than political motive, dis- cuss with you certain problems upon the wise and prompt solution of which depends the glory and prosperity of the South.

But why, for let us make our way slowly, why the South? In an indivisible Union, in a republic against the integrity of which sword shall never be drawn or mortal hand uplifted, and in which the rich blood gather- ing in the common heart is sent throbbing into every part of the body politic, why is one section held separated from the rest in alien consideration ? We can understand why this should be so in a city that has a community of local interests, or in a State still clothed in that sovereignty of which the de- bates of peace and the storm of war have not stripped her. But why should a number of States, stretching from Richmond to Galves- ton, together by no local interosts, held in 10 antonomy, be thus combined and drawn into a common center? That man would be ab- surd who declaimed in Buffalo against the wrongs of the Middle States, or who demand- ed in Chicago a convention for the West, to consider the needs of that section. If then it be provincialism that holds the Sonth to- gether, let us outgrow it; if it be sectionalism let us root it out of our hearts; but if it be something deeper than these and essential to our system, let us declare it with frankness, consider it with respect, defend it with firm- ness and in dignity abide its consequence. What is it that holds the Southern States, though true in thought and deed to the Union, so closely bound in sympathy to day? For a century these States championed a govern- mental theory, but that, having triumphed in every forum, fell at last by the sword. They maintained an institution, but that having been administered in the fullest wisdom of men, fell at last last in the higher wisdom of

God. They fought a war, but the preju- (lices of that war have died, its sympathies have broadened and its memories are already the priceless treasure of the republic that is cemented forever with its blood. They looked out together upon the ashes of their homes and the desolation of their fields; but out of pitiful resources they have fashioned their homes anew, and plenty rides on the springing harvests. In all the past there is nothing to draw them into essential or last- ing alliance, nothing in all that heroic record that cannot be rendered unfearing from pro- vincial hands into the keeping of American history.

But the future holds a problem, in solving which the South must stand alone, in dealing with which she must come closer together than ambition or despair have driven her, and on the outcome of which her very exist- ence depends. This problem is to carry within her body politic, two separate races, equal in civil and political rights, and nearly equal in numbers. She must carry these races in peace, for discord means ruin. She innst carry thein separately, for assimilation means debasement. She must carry them in equal justice, for to this she is pledgedl in honor and in gratitude. She must carry them even unto the end, for in human prob- ability she will never be quit of either. This burden no other people bears to-day; on none hath it ever rested. Withont precedent or companionship the South must bear this prob- lem, the awful responsibility of which should win the sympathy of all human kind and the protecting watchfulness of God. alone, even unto the end. Set by this problem apart from all other peoples of the carth, and her unique position emphasized rather than re- lieved, as I shall show hereafter, by her ma- terial conditions, it is not only fit but it is also

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

essential that she should hold her brother- hood unimpaired, quicken her sympathies, and in the light or in the shadows of this sur- passing problem, work out her own salvation in the fear of God, but of God alone.

What shall the South do to be saved ? Through what paths shall she reach the end? Through what travail or with what splendors shall she give to the Union this section, its wealth garnered, its resources utilized, and its rehabitation complete-and restore to the world this problem, solved in such justice as the finite mind can measure, or finite hand administer?

In dealing with this I shall dwell on two points.

First, the duty of the South in its relation to the race problem.

Second, the duty of the South in relation to its no less unique and important industrial problem.

I approach this discussion with a sense of consecration. I beg your patient and cor- dial sympathy. And I invoke the Almighty God, that having showered on this people His fullest riches has put their hands to this task, that He will draw near unto us, as he drew near unto troubled Israel, and lead us in the ways of honor and uprightness, even through a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

What of the negro? This of him. I want no better friend than the black boy who was raised by my side, and who is now trudging patiently with downeast eyes and shambling figure through his lowly way in life. I want no sweeter musie than the crooning of my old " mammy," now dead and gone to rest, as she held me in her loving arms, and bend- ing her old black face above me stole the cares from my brain and led me smiling into sleep. I want no truer soul than that which

moved the trusty slave, who for four years while my father fought with the armies that barred his freedom, slept every night at my mother's chamber door, holding her and her children as safe as if her husband stood gnard, and ready to lay down his humble life on her threshhold. History has no parallel to the faith kept by the negro in the South during the war. Often 500 negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky throngs the women and children walked in safety, and the unprotected homes rested in peace. Unmarshaled, the black battalions moved patiently to the fields in the morning to feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at night gathered anxiously at the big house to " hear the news from master," though conseious that his vie- tory made their chains enduring. Every- where humble and kindly. The body guard of the helpless. The rough companion of the little ones. The observant friend. The silent sentry in his lowly cabin. The shrewd coun- selor. And when the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A thousand torches would have disbanded every sonthern army, but not one was lighted. When the master going to a war in which slavery was involved said to his slave, " I leave my homc and loved ones in your charge," the tender- ness between man and master stood dis- closed. And when the slave held that charge sacred through storm and temptation, he gave new meaning to faith and loyalty. I re- joiee that when freedom came to him after years of waiting it was all the sweeter be- canse the black hands from which the shackles fell were stainless of a single crime against the helpless ones confided to his care.

From this root, imbedded in a century of kind and constant companionship, has sprung

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

some strange foliage. As no raee has ever lived in sneh unresisting bondage, none was over hurried with such swiftness through freedom into power. Into hands still trem- bling from the blow that broke the shaekles was thrust the ballot. In less than twelve months from the time he walked down the furrow a slave, the negro dictated, in legis- lative halls from which Davis and Calhoun had gone forth, the poliey of twelve com- monwealths. When his late master pro- tested against his misrule, the Federal drum- beat rolled around his strongholds, and from a hedge of Federal bayonets he grinned in good-natured insolenee. From the proven incapacity of that day has he far advanced? Simple, eredulous, impulsive; easily led and too often easily bought,-is he a safer, more intelligent eitizen now than then ? Is this mass of votes, loosed from old restraints, inviting alliance or awaiting opportunity, less menac- ing than when its purpose was plain and its way was direet?

My countrymen, right here the South must make a decision on which very much depends. Many wise men hold that the white vote of the South should divide, the color line be beaten down, and the Southern States ranged on economie or moral questions as interest or belief demands. I am compelled to dissent from this view. The worst thing, in my opinion, that could happen is, that the white people of the South should stand in opposing factions, with the vast mass of ignorant or purehasable negro votes between. Consider such a status. If the negroes were skilfully led it would give them the balance of power -a thing not to be considered. If their vote was not compacted, it would invite the de- banching bid of faetions, and drift surely to that which was most corrupt and cunning. With the shiftless habit and irresolution of

slavery days still possessing him, the negro voter will not in this generation, adrift from war issues, become a steadfast partisan throughi eonseience or conviction. In every community there are colored men who redeem their raee from this reproach, and who vote under reason. Perhaps in time the bulk of this race may thus adjust itself. But, through what long and monstrous periods of political debauchery this status would be reached, no tongue can tell.

The elear and unmistakable domination of the white raee-dominating not through violence, not through purchased alliance, but through the integrity of its own vote and the largeness of its sympathy and justice through which it shall win the support of the better elasses of the colored raee-that is the hope and assurance of the South. Otherwise the negro would be bandied from one faetion to another. His eredulity would be played upon, his eupidity tempted, his impulses mis- directed, his passions inflamed. He would be forever in alliance with that faction which was the most desperate and unscrupulous. Such a state would be worse than reconstrue- tion, for then intelligence was banded, and its speedy triumph assured. But with intel- ligenee and property divided-bidding and overbidding for place and patronage-irrita- tion inereasing with each conflict-the bitter- ness of desperation seizing every heart, political debauchery deepening as caeli fac- tion staked its all in the miserable game, there would be no end to this, until our suffrage was hopelessly sullied, our people forever divided, and our most sacred rights surrendered.

One thing further should be said in per- feet frankness. Up to this point we have dealt with ignorance and corruption; but beyond this point a deeper issue confronts

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

us. Ignorance may struggle to enlighten- ment; out of corruption may come the incor- ruptible. God speed that day. Every true man in the Sonth will pray for it and work for it. Through education the negro must be led to know, and through sympathy to confess, that his interests and the interests of the people of the South are identical. The men who from afar off view this subject through the cold eye of speculation, or see it distorted through partisan glasses, insist that, directly or indirectly, the negro race will be put in control of the affairs of the South. We have no fear of this. Already we are attaching to us the best element of that race. As we proceed our alliance will broaden. External pressure but irritates and impedes. Those who would put the negro race in supremacy would work against a divine and infallible decree, for the white race can never submit to its domination, because the white race is the superior race.

This is the declaration of no new truth; it has abided forever in the marrow of our bones and shall run forever with the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon hearts. In political com- pliance the South has evaded the truth and men have drifted from their convictions. But we cannot escape this issue; it faces us where- ever we turn. It is an issue that has been and will be. The races and tribes of earth are of divine origin. Behind the laws of man and the deerees of war stands the law of God. What God hath separated let no man join to- gether. The Indian, the Malay, the negro, the Caucasian, these types stand as markers of God's will. Let not mnan tinker with the work of the Almighty. Unity of civilization, no more than unity of faith, will never be witnessed on earth. No race has risen or will rise above its ordained place. Here is the pivotal fact of this great matter: Two

races are made equal in law and in political rights, between whom the caste of race las set an impassable gulf. This gulf is bridged by a statute and the races are urged to cross thereon. This cannot be. The fiat of the Almighty has gone forth, and in eighteen centuries of history it is written. We would escape this issue if we could. From the depth of its soul the South invokes from heaven " peace- on earth and good will to inan." She would not if she could cast this race baek into the condition from which we daily thank God it was raised. She would not deny its smallest or abridge its fullest privilege. Not to lift this burden forever from her people would she do the least of these things. She must walk through the valley of the shadow, for God has so ordained. But he has ordained that she shall walk in that integrity of raee that, created in His wis- dom, has been perpetuated in His strengthı. Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the mess- age I deliver to the young men of the South, I declare that the truth above all others to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to no force, sold at no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished and defended as the covenant of your pros- perity, and the pledge of peace to your chil- dren, is that the white race can never submit to the direct or indirect domination of the race that insolent tinkers with divine decree would put above us, but that the white race must and will control the South.

It is a race issue at last. Let us come to this point, and stand here. Here the air is pure and the light is clear, and here honor and peace abide. Juggling and evasion de- ceives not a man. Compromise and subser- vience has carried not a point. There is not a white man North or South who does nto

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feel it stir in the gray matter of his brain and throb in his heart. Not a negro who does not feel its power. It is not a seetional issue. It speaks in Ohio and in Georgia. It speaks wherever the Anglo-Saxon touches an alien race. It has just spoken in universally approved legislation in excluding the China- man from our gates, not for his ignorance, veins of corruption. but because he sought to establish an inferior race in a republic fashioned in the wisdom and defended by the blood of a homogeneous people.

The Anglo-Saxon blood has dominated al- ways and everywhere. It fed Alfred's veins when he wrote the charter of English liberty; it gathered about Hampden as he stood be- neatlı the oak; it thundered in Cromwell's veins as he fonght his king; it humbled Na- poleon at Waterloo; it has touched the desert and jungle with undying glory; it carried the drumbeat of England around the world and spread on every continent the gospel of liberty and of God; it established this Repub- lie, carved it from the wilderness, conquered it from the Indians, wrested it from England, and at last, stilling its own tumult, consc- erated it forever as the home of the Anglo- Saxon, and the theater of his transcending achievement. Never one foot of it can be surrendered while that blood lives in Ameri- ean veins, and feeds American hearts, to the domination of an alien and inferior raee. * *

This problem is not only enduring, but it is widening. The exclusion of the China- man is the first step in the revolution that shall save liberty and law and religion to this land, and in peace and order, not enforced on the gallows or at the bayonet's end, but pro- ceeding from the heart of an harmonious people shall secure in the enjoyment of these rights, and control of this Republie, the

homogeneons people that established and has maintained it. The next step will be taken when some brave statesman looking demagogy in the face shall move to call to the stranger at our gates " Who comes here?" admitting every man who seeks a home, or honors our institutions, and whose habit and blood will run with the native eurrent, but excluding all who seek to plant anarchy or to establish alien men or measures on our soil; and will then demand that the standard of our citizen- ship be lifted and the right of acquiring our suffrage be abridged. When that day comes, and God speed its coming, the position of the South will be fully understood, and everywhere approved. Until then let us, giving the negro every right, civil and politi- cal, measured in that fullness the strong should always accord the weak, holding him in closer friendship and sympathy than he is held by those who would crucify us for his sake, realizing that on his prosperity our's depends, -- let us resolve that never by exter- nal pressure or internal division shall he establish domination, directly or indirectly, over that race that everywhere has maintained its supremacy. (Applause.) Let this reso- lution be cast on the lines of equity and justice. Let it be the pledge of lionest, safe and impartial administration, and we shall command the support of the colored race itself, more dependent than any other on the bounty and protection of government. Let us be wise and patient, and we shall secure through his acqnieseence what otherwise we should win in conflict and hold uncertainty. And as in slavery we led the slave through kindness to heights his race in Africa will never reach, so in freedom through wisdom and justice we shall lead him a freeman to a prosperous contentment to which his friends in the North have slight conception. What

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is stolen from him in frand is nnworthy, and shall not endure. What is taken in violence is worse. What he yields to a policy that commands his sympathy, and which he will help to enforce,-that is precious, and ont of it shall come healing and peace. (Applause.)

All this in no unkindnesss to the negro, but rather that he may be led in justice and in peace to bis uttermost good. Not in sec- tionalism, for my heart beats true to the Union, to the glory of which your life and heart is pledged; not in disregard of the world's opinion, for to render back this prob- lem in the world's approval is the sum of my ambition and the height of human achieve- ment. (Applause.) Not in reactionary spirit, but rather to make clear that new and grander way by which the South is marching to higher destiny, and on which I would not halt her for all the spoils that have been gathered unto parties since Cataline conspired and Cæsar fought. Not in passion, my countrymen, but in reason; not in nar- rowness, but in breadth,-that we may solve this problem in calmness, and in truth, and lifting its shadows let perpetual sunshine pour down on two races, walking together in peace and contentment. Then shall this problem, that threatened our rnin, have proved our blessing, and work our salvation. Then the South, putting behind her all the achievements of her past-and in war and in peace they beggar eulogy-may stand upright among the nations and challenge the judg- ment of man and the approval of God, in having worked out in their sympathy and in His guidance, this last and surpassing mira- cle of human government. (A thunder of

applanse.)

What of the South's industrial problem ? When we remember that amazement followed the payment by thirty-seven million French-

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Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas, Part 26

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1128

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1128