"I have never taken a great deal of interest in politics. Only in the
neighborhood where I lived there was a colony of colored people at
Bentley, South Carolina. They chose me to represent them at the polls
and I did the best I could. I got great credit for both the colored and
the white people for that. But I never took much interest in politics.
"My father spent a fortune in it but I never could see that it benefited
him. I never did care for any kind of office except a mail contract that
I had once to haul mail. I went through that successfully and never lost
a pouch or anything but at the end of the year I throwed it up. I
couldn't trust anyone else to handle it for me and I had to meet trains
at all hours. The longest I could sleep was two or three hours a night,
so I gave it up at the end of the year."