My country, 'tis of thee,
Dear land of Africa,
Of thee we sing.
Land where our fathers died,
Land of the Negro's pride,
God's truth shall ring.
My native country, thee,
Land of the black and free,
Thy name I love;
To see thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and matchless hills,
Like that above.
When all thy slanderous ghouls,
In the bosom of sheol,
Forgotten lie,
Thy monumental name shall live,
And suns thy royal brow shall gild,
Upheaved to heaven high,
O'ertopping thrones.
There were no valuables in his room, and if he was a professional thief
he had his headquarters for storing his plunder at some other place than
his room on Fourth Street. Nothing was found in his room that could lead
to the belief that he was a thief, except fifty or more small bits of
soap. The inference was that every place he visited he took all of the
soap lying around, as all of the bits were well worn and had seen long
service on the washstand.
His wearing apparel was little more than rags, and financially he was
evidently not in a flourishing condition. He was in no sense a skilled
workman, and his room showed, in fact, that he was nothing more than a
laborer.
The "philosopher in the garret" was a dirty wretch, and his room, his
bedding and his clothing were nasty and filthy beyond belief. His object
in life seemed to have been the discomfiture of the white race, and to
this purpose he devoted himself with zeal. He declared himself to be a
"patriot," and wished to be the Moses of his race.
Under the title of "The Making of a Monster," the reporter attempts to
give "something of the personality of the archfiend, Charles." Giving his
imagination full vent the writer says:
It is only natural that the deepest interest should attach to the
personality of Robert Charles. What manner of man was this fiend
incarnate? What conditions developed him? Who were his preceptors? From
what ancestral strain, if any, did he derive his ferocious hatred of the
whites, his cunning, his brute courage, the apostolic zeal which he
displayed in spreading the propaganda of African equality? These are
questions involving one of the most remarkable psychological problems of
modern times.
In answer to the questions which he propounds, the reporter proceeds to
admit that he did not learn anything of a very desperate nature connected
with Charles. He says:
Although Charles was a familiar figure to scores of Negroes in New
Orleans, and they had been more or less intimately acquainted with him
for over two years, curiously little can be learned of his habits or
mode of life. Since the perpetration of his terrible series of crimes it
goes without saying that his former friends are inclined to be reticent,
but it is reasonably certain that they have very little to tell. In
regard to himself, Charles was singularly reticent for a Negro. He did
not even indulge in the usual lying about his prowess and his
adventures. This was possibly due to the knowledge that he was wanted
for a couple of murders. The man had sense enough to know that it would
be highly unwise to excite any curiosity about his past.
When Charles first came to New Orleans he worked here and there as a day
laborer. He was employed at different times in a sawmill, on the street
gangs, as a roustabout on the levee, as a helper at the sugar works and
as a coal shoveler in the engine room of the St. Charles Hotel. At each
of the places where he worked he was known as a quiet, rather surly
fellow, who had little to say to anybody, and generally performed his
tasks in morose silence. He managed to convey the impression, however,
of being a man of more than ordinary intelligence.
A Negro named William Butts, who drives a team on the levee and lives on
Washington Street, near Baronne, told a _Times-Democrat_ reporter
yesterday that Charles got a job about a year ago as agent for a
Liberian Immigration Society, which has headquarters at Birmingham, and
was much elated at the prospect of making a living without hard labor.
According to the further investigations of this reporter, Charles was also
agent for Bishop Turner's _Voice of Missions_, the colored missionary
organ of the African Methodist Church, edited by H.M. Turner, of Atlanta,
Georgia. Concerning his service as agent for the _Voice of Missions_, the
reporter says:
He secured a number of subscribers and visited them once a month to
collect the installments. In order to insure regular payments it was
necessary to keep up enthusiasm, which was prone to wane, and Charles
consequently became an active and continual preacher of the propaganda
of hatred. Whatever may have been his private sentiments at the outset,
this constant harping on one string must eventually have had a powerful
effect upon his own mind.
Exactly how he received his remuneration is uncertain, but he told
several of his friends that he got a "big commission." Incidentally he
solicited subscribers for a Negro paper called the _Voice of the
Missions_, and when he struck a Negro who did not want to go to Africa
himself, he begged contributions for the "good of the cause."
In the course of time Charles developed into a fanatic on the subject of
the Negro oppression and neglected business to indulge in wild tirades
whenever he could find a listener. He became more anxious to make
converts than to obtain subscribers, and the more conservative darkies
began to get afraid of him. Meanwhile he got into touch with certain
agitators in the North and made himself a distributing agent for their
literature, a great deal of which he gave away. Making money was a
secondary consideration to "the cause."
One of the most enthusiastic advocates of the Liberian scheme is the
colored Bishop H.M. Turner, of Atlanta. Turner is a man of unusual
ability, has been over to Africa personally several times, and has made
himself conspicuous by denouncing laws which he claimed discriminated
against the blacks. Charles was one of the bishop's disciples and
evidence has been found that seems to indicate they were in
correspondence.
This was all that the _Times-Democrat_'s reporters could find after the
most diligent search to prove that Charles was the fiend incarnate which
the press of New Orleans and elsewhere declared him to be.
The reporters of the _New Orleans Picayune_ were no more successful than
their brethren of the _Times-Democrat_. They, too, were compelled to
substitute fiction for facts in their attempt to prove Charles a
desperado. In the issue of the twenty-sixth of July it was said that
Charles was well known in Vicksburg, and was there a consort of thieves.
They mentioned that a man named Benson Blake was killed in 1894 or 1895,
and that four Negroes were captured, and two escaped. Of the two escaped
they claim that Charles was one. The four negroes who were captured were
put in jail, and as usual, in the high state of civilization which
characterizes Mississippi, the right of the person accused of crime to an
indictment by legal process and a legal trial by jury was considered an
useless formality if the accused happened to be black. A mob went to the
jail that night, the four colored men were delivered to the mob, and all
four were hanged in the court-house yard. The reporters evidently assumed
that Charles was guilty, if, in fact, he was ever there, because the other
four men were lynched. They did not consider it was a fact of any
importance that Charles was never indicted. They called him a murderer on
general principles.
+DIED IN SELF-DEFENSE+
The life, character and death of Robert Charles challenges the thoughtful
consideration of all fair-minded people. In the frenzy of the moment, when
nearly a dozen men lay dead, the victims of his unerring and death-dealing
aim, it was natural for a prejudiced press and for citizens in private
life to denounce him as a desperado and a murderer. But sea depths are not
measured when the ocean rages, nor can absolute justice be determined
while public opinion is lashed into fury. There must be calmness to insure
correctness of judgment. The fury of the hour must abate before we can
deal justly with any man or any cause.
That Charles was not a desperado is amply shown by the discussion in the
preceding chapter. The darkest pictures which the reporters could paint of
Charles were quoted freely, so that the public might find upon what
grounds the press declared him to be a lawbreaker. Unquestionably the
grounds are wholly insufficient. Not a line of evidence has been presented
to prove that Charles was the fiend which the first reports of the New
Orleans charge him to be.
Nothing more should be required to establish his good reputation, for the
rule is universal that a reputation must be assumed to be good until it is
proved bad. But that rule does not apply to the Negro, for as soon as he
is suspected the public judgment immediately determines that he is guilty
of whatever crime he stands charged. For this reason, as a matter of duty
to the race, and the simple justice to the memory of Charles, an
investigation has been made of the life and character of Charles before
the fatal affray which led to his death.
Robert Charles was not an educated man. He was a student who faithfully
investigated all the phases of oppression from which his race has
suffered. That he was a student is amply shown by the _Times-Democrat_
report of the twenty-fifth, which says:
"Well-worn textbooks, bearing his name written in his own scrawling
handwriting, and well-filled copy-books found in his trunk, showed that he
had burned the midnight oil, and desired to improve himself intellectually
in order that he might conquer the hated white race." From this quotation
it will be seen that he spent the hours after days of hard toil in trying
to improve himself, both in the study of textbooks and in writing.
He knew that he was a student of a problem which required all the
intelligence that a man could command, and he was burning his midnight
oil gathering knowledge that he might better be able to come to an
intelligent solution. To his aid in the study of this problem he sought
the aid of a Christian newspaper, the _Voice of Missions_, the organ of
the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He was in communication with its
editor, who is a bishop, and is known all over this country as a man of
learning, a lover of justice and the defender of law and order. Charles
could receive from Bishop Turner not a word of encouragement to be other
than an earnest, tireless and God-fearing student of the complex problems
which affected the race.
For further help and assistance in his studies, Charles turned to an
organization which has existed and flourished for many years, at all times
managed by men of high Christian standing and absolute integrity. These
men believe and preach a doctrine that the best interests of the Negro
will be subserved by an emigration from America back to the Fatherland,
and they do all they can to spread the doctrine of emigration and to give
material assistance to those who desire to leave America and make their
future homes in Africa. This organization is known as "The International
Migration Society." It has its headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. From
this place it issues pamphlets, some of which were found, in the home of
Robert Charles, and which pamphlets the reporters of the New Orleans
papers declare to be incendiary and dangerous in their doctrine and
teaching.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Copies of any and all of them may
be secured by writing to D.J. Flummer, who is President and in charge of
the home office in Birmingham, Alabama. Three of the pamphlets found in
Charles's room are named respectively:
First, _Prospectus of the Liberian Colonization Society_; which pamphlet
in a few brief pages tells of the work of the society, plans, prices and
terms of transportation of colored people who choose to go to Africa.
These pages are followed by a short, conservative discussion of the Negro
question, and close with an argument that Africa furnishes the best asylum
for the oppressed Negroes in this country.
The second pamphlet is entitled _Christian Civilization of Africa_. This
is a brief statement of the advantages of the Republic of Liberia, and an
argument in support of the superior conditions which colored people may
attain to by leaving the South and settling in Liberia.
The third pamphlet is entitled _The Negro and Liberia_. This is a larger
document than the other two, and treats more exhaustively the question of
emigration, but from the first page to the last there is not an
incendiary line or sentence. There is not even a suggestion of violence in
all of its thirty-two pages, and not a word which could not be preached
from every pulpit in the land.
If it is true that the workman is known by his tools, certainly no harm
could ever come from the doctrines which were preached by Charles or the
papers and pamphlets distributed by him. Nothing ever written in the
_Voice of Missions_, and nothing ever published in the pamphlets above
alluded to in the remotest way suggest that a peaceable man should turn
lawbreaker, or that any man should dye his hands in his brother's blood.
In order to secure as far as possible positive information about the life
and character of Robert Charles, it was plain that the best course to
pursue was to communicate with those with whom he had sustained business
relations. Accordingly a letter was forwarded to Mr. D.J. Flummer, who is
president of the colonization society, in which letter he was asked to
state in reply what information he had of the life and character of Robert
Charles. The result was a very prompt letter in response, the text of
which is as follows: