[39] A person sent into country parishes some months before election to gather up the colored vote; to hold meetings, to instruct the local leaders, mostly preachers and teachers, and to organize the party. Nordhoff, 67. As late as Dec., 1874, a leading negro replied to the query concerning his vote, that “they had not got the word yet.” House Rpts., 43 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 101, 89. Pinchback understood such organization and that gave him his strength. _Ibid._, 67. [40] Nordhoff, 56. [41] Sen. Deb., 1870, 218. [42] Note the frank reply of a lawyer to a negro politician: “I stand ready, as far as in me lies, to protect them in their rights as citizens. Here my friendship stops; I am not their friend when it comes to official life. The colored man has just been redeemed from slavery, and in his new character he is unfit for office. It is an insult and outrage to place him over the white people as an office-holder.” Granting that slavery was wrong, that did not prove “that you should be put into office to run the government before your people have learned anything about the laws.” Sen. Rpts., 44 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 701, xxxv. [43] _Commercial Bulletin_, Jan. 4, 1869. [44] See, this volume, Chapters XI. and XII. [45] Nordhoff, 18. [46] It was Nordhoff’s opinion in 1875 that few laborers as ignorant as the average plantation hand could do as well anywhere else in the world, 21. Nordhoff was a young German immigrant who visited Louisiana as reporter for the New York _Herald_, and published his impressions after an investigation which bears every mark of care and fairness. One can scarcely accuse him of Southern bias when one reads: “I have been opposed to slavery ever since I sat on my father’s knee and was taught by him that slavery was the greatest possible wrong,” 49. [47] Such a charge was made by a member in the House. [48] Herbert says that ten paid taxes, _Why the Solid South_, 401. [49] _Commercial Bulletin_, Jan. 19, 1869. [50] Laws of Louisiana, 1868, No. 114. [51] _Ibid._, 1869, No. 48. [52] House Deb., 1869, 393. [53] _Ibid._, 287. [54] House Deb., 1869, 43-4. The lack of faith in Southern bonds was partly due to the unsettled condition, but also to the fact that just before the war many Southern States had repudiated their debts--an action later to be repeated. [55] _Ibid._ [56] One member asserted that $75,000 was thrown away in 1869 by the sale of the warrants on the streets to pay members. _Ibid._, 1870, 15. [57] Sen. Journal, 1870, 12. [58] Lowell testifies: “I can show that the greatest fraud ever perpetrated was the action of the Senate Committee on Election, whose clerk went out on the streets and coaxed men to come into the committee-room to act as witnesses in order that he might get half the fees. I state further that witness after witness has been paid by the Senate Election Committee who never gave one hour’s testimony.” House Deb., 1869, 12-13. [59] _Ibid._, 50. CHAPTER II