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m hi. SANFORD, NORTH CAROLINA, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8,1888. No. 3 THE DEMAGOGUE’S LIFE. OUR HERO IN1RED LETTERS. Ths Life and Timet of Oliver Hart Dockery-A Colored’Narrative. (Written by W. I* Sannaorn.) It is well, now and then at least, •to trace the careers of men whohave attained eminence, good or bad, that ambitious youth may learn there from hoar tu reach f sum am 'tins one hand or avoid shame on the other. Imbued with this patriotic purpose, we give a brief sketch of the princi pal event* in the life of a man wliooe name is now upon every one’s lip*. That man is OUVER HART DOOKERT. To begin with, our hero is no elouch, no horny-handed son of toil, no poor bockeaof any sort, hut a son of a leading politician, a rich man’s son, with the means as well as the inclination to' gratify his every whim. Born with a silver spoon in iris mouth, as the saying is, and clothed in purple and fine' linen, he began his earthly existence about the year 1826 in the county in which he now lives. Surrounded by eve ry comfort and luxury that life could command, with slaves to his every bidding, he grew apace. In time, Jikeot&er rich men’s sons, he went to school and learned a litlle Latin and less Greek. In 1846 he went to Chapel Hill; what his career was there tradition doth not tell, as in the case of Johnston Pettigrew and Matt Ransom, who were his seniors by a year. Suffice it to say, howev »or, tWt he graduated in 1848 by the skin of bis teeth, or the touchness of his eheek, or ip some other way, and proceeded to study law under that good man, Judge Battle. Of his career at the bar, that treacher ous jade, tradition, again fails to say anything. With his great voice and unlimited cheek he ought to have succeeded, but there is no evidence that he did. And then he became a “planter. They were planter, not farmers, in those days, and indeed, planting ■was not such a had thing with a lot of negroes, wenches included, and a pushing overseer to drive them. The science of planting was mainly in picking out the overseer, and it may lie that our hero, with the help of his father, was successful in that. Tradition, however, still treacher ous, throws no light on the situa tion. In the winter of 1858-'59 he went to the Legislature and dislin gnislsed hijuself there by his efforts to eonrpet free negroes to leave the .State or become slaves. _ And then the war came on. Now though a yaliant man, our hero was not eager for the fray. He feared _ from the beginning.'lie would Jose his “niggers," and he was fond of negroes then, as he is now. But emancipation and the surrender were a long way off at the begin ning of the war, and our hero, with a company of his young friends and neighbors, became apart of the 38th Regiment of North Carolina Troops and a very fine regiment it was, es pecially after our hero: left it. Had not circumstance compelled him to' heave the service just before the lighting began, the war might pos sibly have ended differently. Possi bly Meade and Grant would have suffered the fate of McClellan, Hook >. «r and' Burnside, and Appomattox be still unknown. But however that may be, our hero's commission <w captain in ths Confederate army bore date 80th October, 1881, and then, at a single leap per *oltum, ha vent to the lieutenant colonelcy of the regiment on tbs |7th pf Janua ry, 1802; and there ha stayed until the spring was well advanced and the fighting was about to begin in "earnest, when be failed to be re-elec ted, as was required. I Reaving his young friends and neighbors to strop Yankee bullets, he once more hied him home to the shades off private life and the protection, we presume, of the “twenty nigger clause." And just, here we pause in jdmiration of (tbn ninny uses to which negroes, in eluding wenches, can be put. Un der the Confederate law, “twenty negroes” would keep even an ex lieutenant colonel out of the war. No wonder some people love-negroes so well fvp,gratitude still lives. .„ We lidarno more of our hero as a military man until the Holden Kirk war, when he was commission ed as a brigadier general. He did not reach the field even in this waf however. Its duration was ahort. It will be seen, therefore, that cir cumstances which our hero could not, or at least did not, control came between him and suceeai as a mili tary man, just as they djd in other efforts. A fter the war our hero rested up un his laurels of something else fora time, recruiting from his wounds, as it were, in a sort of chysalw state, that is to say, in the intermediate stage, between tlie old fashioned white grub worm and the modern colored Radical butterfly. But by 18(58, just about the time Federal bayonets converted negroes into vo ters, our hero bloomed out as a full grown Radical, for he then saw his way elear before him. The truth is no man in America who can put ne groes, uot excluding even the wenches, to more usefnl purposes than our hero, for he is as good a judge to-day of the value of a negro, whether a smart buck or a likely wench, as any other trader ever was before the war. If the negro be a buck, he is a vote; if a wench, she is good to point a slander with, and of both he has need upon occasion. But it must be suposed the money expended by our hero's father on ^lis legal education was money thrown away. Our hero law yer of the old school or be was not a lawyer at aiL Some people say one thing and some say the oihor. His strict adherence, however, to a max im of the old school law books, "for tifies us in the belief that he was a lawyer “of that ilk.” Throughout his entire career, when our hero could not get exactly what he want ed he has taken the next best thing to it he could get. This doctrine was called in the old books^if we. recol lect aright, the cy pres construction, or, as we would say in the cpmrnon talk of the day, the doctrine that lrftlf loaf is better than no loaf. Ac cordingly, after the surrender came, “with all the words implied,” as Mr. Tilton remarkrd about Mr. Beecher, and he fully realized that negroes could no longer be worked to advan tage on plantation, his quick black eye straightway saw that the next best place to work them was at_ the polls, and there he has been work ing them ever since. This involves the loss of the wenches in part, but I not' altogether, for they are extreme ly useful iu whooping the bucks up to the polls. „ Accordingly, in April, Jooa, by the bucks and the wenches, and Cailby’s bayonets, be waa “elected,” so-called, for the then unexperien ced term, the “votes" being counted in Charleston, South Carolina. It is an eaaj thing to be “elected" when the negro bucks and wenches and Federal bayonets are on one side and disfranchised white people on the other and the returning board in Charleston. In August of the same year he was “elected” for a full ferm of two years. In fact, our hero always did his best running with Federal bayonets at his back. In 1870 he was not “elected," for that year they were short of Federal bayonets and Colonel Waddell eat down upon him, and they do say there was scarcely a “grease spot” left of dim. In July, 1870, at Fay etteville, during the discussion them between Colonel Dockery and Colonel Waddell, then opposing can didates f6r Congress in the Cape Fear District, while Waddell wm speaking Colonel Dockery rose and, interrupted him, said in his biggest voice and most bullying, browbeat ing manner*. “If the statement the gentleman has jnst made is ever re peated I shall reply to it with a monosyllable,” and thereupon re sumed his seat,,_It is said that had a pin fifllon it would have been heard, so great wag the silence that ensued. Everybody saw the Crisis. What the result would be no one could tell—perhaps bloodshed and no little of it. Waddell was slender and youthful-looking, and by no means a match physically for the hurley Dockery, but he would have plenty of friends if he showed fight. Would he do it? The result will When Dockery sat down Wad dell rose and, addressing £he crowd in his softest tones, and, smiling as he did so: “Fellow-citizens, you heard what Colonel Dockery has just said, and you know what it means.' "it means that if I repeat what I have said hi* will denounce it as a lie, aud you know what that means.” Turning to Colouel Dock ery and approaching him until he could almost touch him, repeated the statenient word for word, and then as it were, shaking his finger in Dockery’s very face, he said: “And now, Colonel Dockery what arc you going to do about it?” To the surprise of every one Colonel Dockery’s reply was, pshaw, Wad dell, 1 don't want to have any per sonal difficulty with you.” 'And then such a shout of laughter and derision went up as made the very welkin ring. And no “monosylla ble” was uttered and no blood was spilled. i tell. During me same campaign, ai me place for speaking near Lilesville, in the county of Anson, Colonel Dock ery stated that owing to violent sickness the night before be was physically unable to take partin the discussion and he hoped under the circumstances his opponent would decline to speak. Colonel Waddell, in reply, said he disliked to dis appoint the people, but as there was much in his speech about Colonel Dockery, and he could not strike a sick man, he would not speak. The people much dissatisfied insis ted that Waddell should speak to do so, and left the ground and went to the house of a friend some four or five miles off to get his din ner. He had barely gotten; there, however, and been made comforta ble, when a messenger rode up in post basts and announced that Dockery had suddenly recovered and was speaking for dear life, making all sorts of misrepresentations. Waddell at once returned to the speaking ground, and they do sav, gave the burly Dockery a scoring he would remember to bis dying day, if his hide wasn’t so thick and his memory so bad, using more “mono syllables” polosyllables and all sorts of syllables, than were ever heard to fall from the lips of so soft-spo ken, mild-mannered, Blender-built, and Christian a gentleman in the same length of time. And the val iant Dockery, like other lambs gen erally, when led to the slaughter, opened not his mouth. This inci dent is related lest Judge Fowle be taken in by Dockery's cry, of being anyway, but he absolutely “sick. The trend ot our hero a genius, however, does not seem to be toward statesmanship. Two speeches that lie got permission to print, and that he might have printed without per mission, and not a word of which he delivered, constitute the sum, total, so far as this biograper has seen, of the Congressional efforts of our he ro during his three years’ service at Washington—of course, we mean outside of drawing his pay, which, if we mistake not, was somewhere near $25,600. In 1882 our hero pro posed to resume business as a states man, but Colonel Bennett having gotten in hiB way, he concluded to remain at home. And now having once more wear ied off the delights of rural life, in spite of its many attractions, he proposes to come to Raleigh and be our Governor, and naturally enough, perhaps, for farming with free “nig gers," who are also voters, is neith er pleasant npr profitable to a man accustomed to “planting" with slaves and bull whips, one too, who is a supplicant for their votes and who has the further disadvantage of knowing nothing about tilling the soil. It is admitted on all hands, we believe, that our hero is perhaps the poorest farmer on the Pee Dee. Ordinarily, indeed, as the old saying goes, the master's tracks are the bent manner he can put on bis land, but in the case of our lmro, it is not true, as his plantation, it is said, is by long odds the better for his ab* senee. There is one crop, however, that he can beat all creation raising, and that is grass, making two blades grow only where one grew before is an easy thing to him—in fact, a halWiir-en is his usual crop, they sayr hut the deuce of it is, he grows his grass along with pis cotton and corn, and they do say that it is bad judgement. i ijnt our hero’s desire to come to Raleigh is not only Batural, sis we have said, but it is o»ly carrying out the doctrine that thp half loaf is bettter than no loaf, i He tried to go to Washington, | the National Capitol, and couldn’t, and now he is trying to get to Italegh, the State Capital, as the uexi best thing. Next year we expect ft: hear of him as trying to get to Rbchingham as mayor, his county town, being next in order to the State Capital. But no byography is complete without some sort of an analysis, more or less metaphysical, of the characteristics of the aero, and this we attempt for|Our he:o as follows: "1. He has as'much cheek as any man in North Carolina, either na tive or of the carpet-bag persua sion. 2. He has as much brass as cheek. N. B.—This distinction between brass and cheek is purely metaphys ical. 3. He is by nature bold to rash ness, that is to say, when the ene my is weak, ignorant or distant. But he is not half so dangerous in close quarters as he looks. As yet no man’s blood is on his hands, not even a Yankee's, notwithstanding the boundless possibilities he has en joyed in that line. He is no man. for “dead corpuses” of his own make. 4. He is a ready man, and can furnish more testimony and better fitting testimony on shorter time, from his own imagination and by his “own unaided efforts,” as Gener al Grunt used to say, giving chapter and verse, than any man in the State. In fact, he is never at a loss for authrity directly in point, un less, indeed, he thinks his adversary knows what he is talking about. 5. He is by unanimous consent addmitted to be a thorough profi cient in the dialectics of demagoggy of the grosser grades. His skill in this regard is considered very won derf oh 8. His powers of observation and generalization are fairly good. In proof of this may be cited a reply he made to a Northern member of Congress when asked what was really the effect of emancipation in the South. “It’s well enough,” said he, “for niggers, but it's hell on bull yearlings.” For tereeness of ex pression and yet for comprehensive ness of the situation that is not ten excelled. of 7. On the other hind, his judge ment of men, that is to say of white men, is not always good. For jin stance he thought lie had a Soft, thing of it when he met Colonel Waddell in Fayetteville in 1870. This was a mistake in judgement in which he has ever since had our sin cere sympathy. We deeply sympa thize with any man who uridertakps to bully Alfred Waddell, thinking he lias a soft thing in hand. Oiir hero made this mistake. His judge ment of a negro, however, is infalli ble. •8:‘ Another* defect in- his mental makeup, if, indeed, it be a defect, is a variableness of memory that in large measure affects his statements, so that at times they not only fail to he consistent with each other, but fail also to be eonsisteut with wbat may be called the parent facts. This idiosyncrasy, which is so mark ed a characteristic of our hero, has no moral element in it, whatever, but comes solely, it would seem from mental malformation, and would be a source of mortification, to onedif ferently constituted. This also is metaphysical. 9.' There is a certain moi al obli quity that obscures his inner vision at times and disables him from dis tinguishing between decency and in decency. This leads him to bad habits; the slander of women, for instance. 10. His mip<J generally is slow to act, except when the inventive or imaginative aualities arecalled into play. For a tact, fiction is his forte. This* too, is purely metaphysical. With such mental characteristics and the physical gifts he possesses, his wealth of cheek and voice and brow, onr hero could not fail of em inence—of one sort or another. And thus ends our story. If we Wave failed to chronicle brilliant successes the fault is not ours; w could with the material we had. And in this connection we note that our hero's nearest approach to suc cess has been when ne had either slaves or Federal bayonets at his back, and neither of these are now hero. Another word and wo have done. It is said his health always breaks down before a joint campaign comes to a natural end, Si lah ! we shall see what we shall sec! THE NOBLE OLD ROMAN. MORE PLAIN COMMON SENSE. How the Manufacturer Shows His Love for the Laborers. (Qrom Tliurmaa’s Big Speech at Port Ilnron.) Now, my friends there is another thing to which I wish to call your attention. They say all at once (I say all at once, for it is a very late doctrine), these advocates of protec tion are all at once seized with won derful solicitude for the laboring man of the country; and they want • high protective tariff, not to ben efit the capitalist, not to benefit the monopolist, not to benefit the man ufacturer, according to their state ment, but to benefit the laboring “man. He is the man they seek to protect. And how are they going to protect him? Why, they say that a high protective tariff will better his condition, give him more wages, higher. I would like to know how I that can be. I -would like to know how taxing a laboring man on every thing, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, is going to inrich him. [.Laughter and ap plause.] Yet this is exactly , what this tariff tax does. It taxes him on the hat that he wears; on that cap that I put on my head to keep it warm. [ Applause and laughter. ] It taxes him on his shirts, on his neck tie, on his underclothes, on his coat, on his vest, on his breeches, on his stockings, ou his boots, on every thing. [Renewed cheering.] It raises the price and taxes him until the poor man can hardly make enough money, even if he gets a few cents more wages in the day. It taxes him until he can hardly make enough money to support himself and his family, if he has one. And vet they say that this is for the ben efit of the laboring man. My friends that is a very bald-faced statement if there ever was one in the world. But there is another thing about it. How is he to get these high wages? Why, he is to get them because his list, will make more money, and therefore can afford to pay bis em ployes or hired men higher wages than he paid them before. I agree that he could, I agree that it increa ses his profits; I agree that he might, having these increased profits, pav his laboring men more than they were paid before. But does he do it? That is the question. ]Ap plauso and cries of “No no!”] Did you ever know him to do it? [Cries of "No no!"] The tariff has been raised again and again; it was im mensely" raised by the tariff of 1 SOI or ’03—1 forgot which of these years it was. It was raised in a few years again, and it has been raised again aud again and again, and yet in all that time I never have been able to find the manufacturer or -capitalist who upon the raising of the tariff has increased the price paid on his laborers. If there was such a case it has escaped the attention of every body, even of these diligent newspa per men who gather up all the news, and sometimes a great deal that is no news at all. [Merriment.] But they have never been able to find that manufacturing man who in. creased the price paid his laborers because the tariff was increased. But' my friends, we have had for twenty-seven years nearly the high est tariff that' this country ever knew; fully on an average twice as high as it was before the war;' we have had that high tariff all this time. Now, if that high tariff is so much for the benefit of the labor ing men, why have not the laboring men in these twenty-seven yoars grown rich, I should like to know? Have they? [Cries of “^fo, no!”] If they have, they are Very unrea sonable men, for not a year passed over our heads that we do not hear of strikes of the laborers, because they demand more wages and say they cannot live on Mint they re ceive. Again and again wo hear of what are called lockouts, that is, where the employers suspend the ojieratTbns of their! mills and lock them up becausethey say they can* uot afford to pay any- more wages than they did pay. Why are these strikes? Why are these lockouts? Why are there sueh institutions as labor unions? So as to secure bet ter wages. Why is there sueh as in stitution as the Knights of Labor? To prevent laboring men from be ing imposed upon and to increase their compensation. Why is there a necessity for all these thing and all these extensive and worthy organi zations if a higher tariff gives higher wages to the laborer? No man can answer that question satisfactorily even to himself. If what these men say is true about high tariff and their effect upon wages, why then, gentlemen, all these labor nnions, all these Knights of Labor, and every body else who is engaged in that kind of business, are simply wasting their time, for the tariff nicely solves the problem for them. [Laughter aud applause. ] Yes, it does solve the problem of them, but not in the way they like, f Renewed laughter.} Not precisely in the way that they feel as if they were benefited, and therefore they have to resort to oth er means to get those wages which the employers are not willing to pay. But while I am on this subject .of the laboring man let me add: They say that the tariff does not raise the price. If it doesn’t raise prices I would like to know why the manu facturers, or so mi^oy of them, are in favor of it? Do they want a high tariff in order to lower the prices? Not many of them, I think. The Negreos and Taxation. (From Another one of Thnrman’s Masterly Bpeeahes at Port Huron.) But there is one class of laborers, my friends, that I want to call your attention to especially. There is one class of laborers in this country who have been, according tothe claims of the abolitionists in the country,, and of the Republicans, their especial wards—especiallp un de' their guardianship, and for whose interests (lie^feel the most peculiar ancf caniesf solicit uiPfauTtBese^Tire the negroes. Now, I lie result oi the war was to free about four mill ions of negroes, and I am very glad they were freed, and they have in creased to about six or seven mill ions, for the negro is a prolific ani mal. [Great laughter and applause.] Now, how do these negroes make their living? Why, a great many of them go to town and pursue any kind of handicraft that they can, becoming domestic servants, black ing shoes, shaving faces, or doing things of that .kind. But in the country the negro makes what lie gets by cultivating the earth throughout the whole South. How does hecultivate it? Why, he eith er bought some land, and some of them have bought a good deal, or he rents land. Whether he cultivates his own land or whether he rents it the crops which begets from it are the remuneration he receives for his toil. Now, that crop in the main consists of cotton, some corn ami some little wheat, but mainly all cot ton. Now. how can the high pro tective tariff benefit that negro whe raises cotton and has for his share of the crop three or four or five bales of cotton each year. Why, gentle men, there is no tariff at all on cot ton. It comes in free as the air 1 believe I am quite right in saying that, ain’t IF [Turning to Mr Outhwaite. ] air. Uuthwuite—i es, sir. Judge Thurman—It comes in free as the air. The price of cotton, therefore, is not raised, as they say or lessened by this tariff tax, and yet there is all that the negro has for his labor. .He can’t get a cent more foi his cotton by reason of any high protective tariff, and he don’t gel perhaps, a cent less. He*has to sell it at the price that is made by th( foreign markets; the price in Liver pool or in London to which cottor is exported from the United States It is there that the price of his oot ton is lixed, and for that price hi has to sell it, tariff or uo tariff. Hu how is it on the other hand? Tin negro, although he is living in apret ty warm climate m some places, still wants to be decent and wants to 'be comfortable, and wants his wife and children to be comfortable, and they do need clothing as well as other people; but upon every single thing that he buys to clothe himself, to clothe his family, to clothe his little pickaninnies, to get a blanket, to get a tool or implement of any kind, he is taxed by this high protective tariff, and he i% compelled to pay a higher price than he otherwise wonld so that so far as he is con cerned there can be no pretence whatsoever that the tariff is anything bnt an unmitigated injury to him. He has nothing to sell which can be benefited by it; he performs no labor that by any kind of argument can be said to be benefited by it. He sells it at a price fixed by a foreign mar ket because he can't sell for any other price, and upon everything that he purchases for his consumpt ion, he has to pay an increased price and is thereby injured. Now, I do think onr abolition friends, especi ally, ought to take this under their most serious consideration. They say that they freed the negro from slavery. I am willing to grant them all they claim in that regard, al though there might be something said about who did it. Perhaps two millions of Democratic soldiers in the army had something to do with it. [Great applause.] After giving them all they claim, do they mean, after having given him freedpm, to make him a slave by compelling him to pay higher taxes upon every thing that is a necessity to use, not for his own benefit, but for the ben efit of somebody else? It is not enough that they make him a slave by requiring him to vote for them and swear not to vote for a llerno crat? Is that not enough? Must they also take all his little earnings by compelling him to pay for every thing that he wears and everythin his wife and children wear, more than he ought to he required to pay? = Llknm&pplWsJ—. SONC OF THE CAMPAIGN LIE. I'm a beautiful Campaign Lie, A rollickirg, rearing Lie; A tramping, vamping, stamping, scamp mg, Jolly old Campaign Lie. I goes tip tint Tribune's stairs, And Whitelaw when I spy, I says Cm a high old rollicking, frolick ing ■Roaring Campaign Lie. Then he bounces ont of liis cltair, And he makes a most beautiful bow And gluggify glug says the little brown jug. And WUitehnv, he says "How!” Then I sit's right down in his chair, t And I straight dewelops me, Then 1 am the bouncingist, tloiincing ist, jounoingist Lie you ever dhl see. Then 1 goes right oil to the Hun, And liana, says lie, O my! I hough a sky-high lie you be, you see, Yet a taller one am I. Yet welcome to the Hun. - Hut blast your ugly eyes, When treason’s in season, there’s very good reason For you to come in disguise. N. V. Commercial Adocrliser„ The Jersey Lily. Mrs. Langtry sailed away from New York Saturday for Liverpool She goes, she says, if reported aright, “simply to see Mr. Gebkurd, who was ordered to Europe by his ,physi cians a week ago; * * and to get some new gowns in Paris.” For the benefit of the ladies we will say that the Lily’s attire “was perfection. She wore a traveling dreKs of the style of the Directories, made of striped cam el’s hair. The bosom was in the shape of a vest of the softest China crepe, fawn in shade, to mach the gown, Her neck and waist were encircled by bands of soft cardinal China silk. On her ' rich chestnut ^ tinted hair was perched ahat of soft brown felt of the most indescribable and crumbled shape. But it wm" chic. Her feet were encased in the prettiest russet leather shoes, and above the tops peeped the silkenhose of cardinal and black. Gloves of ; fawn suede, a purse of russet leather | and silver and a parasol of blood . shade, with an enamelled stick and i jewelled top," ' .,--. '• „
The Sanford Express (Sanford, N.C.)
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Sept. 8, 1888, edition 1
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