An Echo to the Manager’s Call.
Mr. Editor: In your issue of June 21, 1877, an article appears,
emanating from the business manager, indicating trouble ahead. He
says that from the very fact of the editor receiving two letters to
his one, and the supporters of our publishing department placing
the major portions of their communications on the wrong current,
the most pernicious effect is designed to flow through the stream
of intellectual knowledge gleaned from the columns of the Christian
Recorder.
I have only to ask my brethren, Can we, as pillars of the porch that
leads to the great temple of African Methodism, sit still on our easy
chair and hear such powerful peals of thunder ringing through our
ears, constantly coming from the subverting clouds now overhanging our
manager’s head?
Let us burst loose the bands of oppression, open the prison door and
set the captive free. Give the manager a fair start in the race, and
then if he die (as he says the death warrant has been served on others
who had charge of the concern), let us bury him in a recreant’s grave.
As to the department being whittled away by the ministry, I would
like to ask, Mr. Editor, who is responsible for that? Is there not a
prescribed mode of bringing these would-be men to justice? These vipers
that creep through the money till of all our departments and from
their atrocious dereliction or their villainous designs to defraud the
connection out of what is rightfully due it? These things are actually
undermining the foundation of our Church. Put them between the upper
and lower millstones and grind them as fine as powder. Do not let us
all suffer from the effect of the same blow. The blow the Doctor struck
has shocked the connection like a mighty earthquake. Now the question
goes from every loyal fort along the line, “Who are these whittlers?”
Again, the manager says there is a wolf howling about the door of
his sanctum, and that unless there be sufficient food to satisfy his
demands, at no distant date there will be a burst up. I again ask,
Cannot this eternal howling be stopped?
Now, the manager says that our articles of commendation and sweet
pats on the shoulder, telling him to go ahead with the engine without
anything to propel it, does not amount to much. He wants action--noble,
sublime, Godlike action--such as will place him on the road to success.
Then, brethren, let us act. According to the report made at the
General Conference of 1872, we have three hundred thousand members,
seven thousand preachers in our connection. Let a Sabbath be set apart
and let it be universally known throughout the Church, and one-fourth
of a dollar be collected from each member. This would give us the nice
little sum of $75,000. Say that the preachers give one dollar each,
including bishops, managers, editors and all others, which would make
a total of $82,000. Would not this stop the howling wolf and save the
department? The echo is, Yes! Then, brethren, let us awake from our
sleep. Call the forces to the front, wheel into line, fire on the
enemy, and the victory is ours. I will guarantee one-fourth of a dollar
from each one of my members, and not only one dollar from myself, but
five, at whatever time may be mentioned as a day for this purpose in
the interests of the Book Concern.
A. H. NEWTON.
Algiers, La., July, 1877.
The Race Problem Solved at Asbury Park.
For the Christian Recorder.
New Brunswick, N. J., August 2, 1890.
Mr. Editor.
Sir: As a native of the “Old North State” myself, it is but natural
that I should feel some pride in every honor or mark of respect paid
to her honored sons; and yet, sir, when I see metropolitan papers,
whose politics are not very favorable to our race, teeming with
praise of the speeches made, with some very remarkable quotations of
opposition to the “Force Bill,” or apologizing for certain reasons
why it should not become a law; when I see certain gentlemen denied
by those in authority not especially committed to our side of public
questions regarding our interest, it is but natural that some of us
should become alarmed lest these honors are received and bestowed at
the terrible expense of compromising the rights of our race.
We are forced to believe that President Grandison must have committed
himself with all the force of his eloquence on the beach at the park
to thirty thousand people in favor of the Force Bill. We are also led
to believe that our popular friend Dr. Sampson was very conservative
in his Fourth of July speech. But now comes out one of the leading
illustrated journals with all the pictures of these orators of the
Fourth at the park, and the Doctor is made to say if a colored man is
discriminated against or in any way persecuted in regard to his rights,
that it ought to stimulate him to greater effort to make himself more
worthy, and to not only make himself the equal, but the superior of the
other men. With other compromising remarks, and after several highly
pleasing speeches on the beach to the multitudes from the hotels, it is
said that the Doctor and founder, Bradley, repaired to the dining rooms
of the different hotels and told the colored help when and where they
might be allowed to bathe.
Was this arrangement made by the Doctor with Mr. Bradley for the
colored people? Will these two North Carolinians answer this question?
Were they paid one hundred dollars for these speeches, and were they
properly quoted in the New York World? I mean President Grandison, of
Bennett College, as to his views on the Force Bill delivered at the
park or elsewhere, and also Dr. Sampson on the Race Problem, delivered
on the grand stand on the Fourth of July at the park. I understand that
my old friend did say that a Negro’s occupation should not be above
that of a servant, for he must know well how to discharge the duties
belonging to this sphere before he is able to meet the more responsible
duties of life. I ask the Doctor if this is all true.
Yours respectfully,
A. H. NEWTON.