"White man bery unsartin": "Nigger haint got no friends, no how"; the blackest chapter in the history of the Republican Party; the men who robbed and combined to rob the freedmen of their hard earnings.Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
History
"White man bery unsartin": "Nigger haint got no friends, no how"; the blackest chapter in the history of the Republican Party; the men who robbed and combined to rob the freedmen of their hard earnings.
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
Freedman's Savings and Trust Company
1. “$20,000 Seneca Sandstone Quarry Company, at 90 cents, to
Dr. John L. Kidwell. Loan, $18,000.”
2. “Loan to M. G. Emery of $25,000, on corporation coupon
certificates, par value of $50,000.”
Mr. Emery was mayor of the city at the time, and it is only right to
say here that the loan was a legitimate one, and ultimately paid, with
interest.
3. “Loan to H. K.” (which meant Hallett Kilbourn.) “on 300
shares of Metropolis Paving Company, $14,000. The par value of
stock $30,000, only $3,500 paid up.”
The stock of this concern of which Lewis Clephane was president, and at
the same time one of the Finance Committee of the Bank, was at the time
it was hypothecated utterly worthless. This Lewis Clephane was what we
shall call here, a high society Republican, and twenty years ago was
book-keeper for Doctor Guilmel Bailey, editor of the _National Era_, an
ultra anti-slavery journal. Mr. Clephane is now a man of wealth, lives
in a thirty thousand dollar house, pretentiously located on the corner
of 13th and K streets. How he got the money to build such an elegant
house, to ride in his carriage, and fare sumptuously every day, is not a
matter for so humble an individual as myself to inquire into. Washington
has its laws, socially, legally, and morally, and I have sometimes
thought that the bigger the thief the greater were his immunities. The
difference between the big thief, in Washington, and the little thief,
was beautifully illustrated a few weeks ago in the sentence of one of
our judges who sent a black man of the name of George Washington to the
Maryland penitentiary for six months, at hard labor, for stealing a
goat. Yes, for stealing a goat, commonly regarded as a public nuisance.
With so righteous a sentence, staring us in the face, who will dare say
justice is jobbed in this District?
As to the matter of Mr. Clephane’s wealth, so suddenly acquired, I can
safely leave that as a matter to be decided between his conscience and
himself. Enough of this. Let us return to Mr. Elvans’ transcript.
4. “Demand Note, of _Scharf_ Paving Company, collateral, 200
shares, of $100 each. (Worthless.) Loan, $3,000.”
This Scharf Paving Company was an offshoot of the rascally Metropolis
Paving Company, of which John O. Evans, Kilbourn, and other congenial
spirits, were the managers, and Lewis Clephane the president. And just
here I beg the innocent reader not to forget that during all this time
Lewis Clephane, the high society Republican, described above, was a
member of the Finance Committee of the Freedman’s Bank, made such,
because of his supposed friendship for the colored man.
5. “Loan to John L. Kidwell, apothecary, and President of the
Seneca Sandstone Company, 20 bonds of $500 each. Loan. $4,000,
at 10 per cent.”
These bonds were not worth the paper they were printed on.
GENERAL O. O. HOWARD, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN SOLDIER, COMES UPON THE STAGE
AS A SPECULATOR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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