a parcel of us got together and said we would organize ourselves into a committee and look into affairs and see the true condition of our race, to see whether it was possible we could stay under a people who held us in bondage or not. That committee increased until it numbered about five hundred and Mr. Adams says: Some of the members of the committee was ordered by the committee to go into every State in the South where we had been slaves, and post one another from time to time about the true condition of our race, and nothing but the truth. In answer to the question whether they traveled over various States he said: "Yes, sir; and we worked, some of us, worked our way from place to place, and went from State to State and worked--some of them did--amongst our people, in the fields, everywhere, to see what sort of a living our people lived--whether we could live in the South amongst the people that held us as slaves or not. We continued that on till 1874. Every one paid his own expenses, except the one we sent to Louisiana and Mississippi. We took money out of our pockets and sent him, and said to him you must now go to work. You can't find out anything till you get amongst them. You can talk as much as you please, but you got to go right into the field and work with them and sleep with them to know all about them." I think about one hundred or one hundred and fifty went from one place or another. Q. What was the character of the information that they gave you? A. Well, the character of the information they brought to us was very bad, sir. * * * * * Q. Do you remember any of these reports that you got from members of your committee?--A. Yes, sir; they said in several parts where they was that the land rent was still higher there in that part of the country than it was where we first organized it, and the people was still being whipped, some of them, by the old owners, the men that had owned them as slaves, and some of them was being cheated out of their crops just the same as they was there. Q. Was anything said about their personal and political rights in these reports as to how they were treated?--A. Yes; some of them stated that in some parts of the country where they voted they would be shot. Some of them stated that if they voted the Democratic ticket they would not be injured. Q. Now let us understand more distinctly, before we go any further, the kind of people who composed that association. The committee, as I understand you, was composed entirely of laboring people?--A. Yes, sir.