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LIFTING HIMSELF BY HIS OWN BOOT STRAPS

by HORACE R. CAYTON

Minister, Educator, United States Senator and Philosopher, He Rose from the Lowest Depth of America's Dark Chapter to the Dizzy Heights Trod by Few Men

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[[caption]] HYRAM R. REVELS Sketch from an old print. [[/caption]]

THE dying echoes of the roaring dogs of the internecine war of the United States of North America had softened into, "Peace be still," while the man in the White House proclaimed, "Go thy way rejoicing," and four million former human chattels chanted back, "We don't know where we's gwine, but we knows we's on our way."

On our way was verily correct, for they scattered hither, thither and everywhere, and that too without purpose, aim or direction. The wonder is that they, like the children of Israel, did not become extinct in their aimless wanderings through the trackless jungles of slavedom ignorance. Though they had left, "de ole plantation, mah hom' an' mah relations," yet that moving was only, "I move to Jack's house, and Jack move to mine," but all in the South, where the great bulk of them are still to be found.

Crude material to say the least, out of which to fashion an acceptable citizenry; but somhow, sometime, somewhere, and by somebody it had to be undertaken and even done; not in a day, not in a month, not in a year, yea not even in a lifetime, but in the remote future. It was finally begun and it has gone on and on, and though still far from the goal, yet, at this time, marked progress is the report of the committee having charge of the undertaking.

Self aggrandizement, profiteering, and exploiting may have been the chief motives for clothing such dwarfed mentality in suffrage suits, thereby transforming the slave of yesterday into the statesman of today-no less a miracle than the turning of water into wine-but it was attempted, and as pitable as the effort may have been, the halls of Congress, the various state houses of the South, and likewise the various county and state offices were overrun with men totally devoid of ordinary governmental intelligence, and particularly of the kin they were called upon to furnish in order to fill state and county official positions. With such a state of affairs prevailing hordes of mercenary adventurers took advantage of their inexperience and wilfully preyed upon this newly made citizenry, who thereby became the victims of unavoidable circumstances.

All rules, however, have their exceptions, and as illiterate and unsophisticated as were the Negroes of Reconstruction Days, occasional stars of the seventh magnitude rose among them above the horizon and brilliantly illuminated the orbits in which they whirled. Notable among such exceptions was the Rev. Hyram R. Revels, a highly educated Methodist preacher of Natchet, Mississippi, who had forged to the front as a religious leader and advisor, and through him National Negro history wrote its first lines in, "this land of the free and home of the brave."

Hyram R. Revels was born in Fayettville, North Carolina, the 27th of September, 1827, and of free parentage, which enabled him to go North and acquire a College education and to post graduate from a Theological Seminary. His faith in education being the redeeming hope of the colored man in the United States, backed by his religious zeal was doubtless the planted seed which germinated and grew into the founding of Alcorn University, the beginning of the end of Southern Negro illiteracy.

Prayer availeth much was the abiding faith of the Rev. Hyram R. Revels and he practically and theoretically lived up to its tenets throughout his long and useful career. When he met trials and tribulations in his daily activities, he invariably "took them to the Lord in prayer," and in the main easily overcame them.

While a member of the city council of Natchez,

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MAJOR JOHN R. LYNCH. Representative from Mississippi 43d, 44th, and 47th Congresses, Serving Six Years. Soldier Statesman, Author and Attorney-at-las now residing in Chicago.

Mississippi, using his own words, "I accomplished my greatest aims under the influence of well directed prayer." It was one particular prayer, which he offered at a Republican state convention, that attracted the favorable attention of Hon. John R. Lynch, then mayor of Natchez, subsequently Representative in Congress form the famous Mississippi Show String district, and as a result of the said prayer, the Rev. Dr. Revels was overwhelmingly elected to the state senate from Adams county at the solicitation of Mayor Lynch. It was his Christian fortitude, his splendid educational qualifications, his legislative conservatism, and his power of concentration that made of him a leader in that particular legislative body, whose duty it was to elect a successor the Senator Jefferson Davis, who had given up his seat in the United States senate to join the Confederate Union then in the act of being organized.

That Legislature was split three ways as to whom the Davis Senatorial toga should go. The white Republicans wanting a white senator, the colored Republicans, a colored senator, and the Democrats, a Democratic senator, and under such conditions was that particular legislature organized for the work it had to do. From the very outset the name of Hyram R. Revels loomed up among both factions of the Republican p arty as the most available personae for senatorial honor and assuring future party harmony. The Democrats having observed his faithful and trustworthy work at home and likewise in the legislature offered no serious objections to the senatorial propaganda being fostered in his behalf and so all factions finally made his election to the senate next to unanimous. Thus did the unexpected happen - a Negro was elected United States Senator - the world held its breath.

WHEN the anti-slavery agitation was in full swing in the United States Senate and the thundering eloquence of the Southern Senators was being matched by the satirical wit of the Northern Senators, Senator Charles Sumner, of subsequent Negro Civil Rights fame, in replying to Senator Davis of Mississippi, who in a previous speech, had threatened to resign his seat in the Senate to join the Confederacy, made this prophetic retort, "If you surrender your seat in this body, it is my prediction that your successor will be a Negro". As wild and as speculative as was the prophecy at the time, yet the more or less miraculous election of Hyram R. Revels fulfilled the same - and the world rolled on.

There probably was not to be found in all Congress an abler representative than the Hon. Jefferson Davis; not only a statesman was he, but a soldier, a writer, a philosopher, a financier, and an historian, whose past efforts in all of those accomplishments earned for his name a place in the archives of the history of the world. Quite a contrast but more or less in keeping with the trend of the times, that such a white statesmen should be succeeded by one of the most highly educated, cultured, and oratorical colored men in the United States; by no means the parliamentary equal of Senator Davis, but an aren't disciple of him, from a literary standpoint. Judging from the attitude of the Democratic members of the Mississippi legislature, the white citizens of the state must have consoled themselves with the thought, "in as much as we seemed doomed to have a Negro Senator, the white citizens in particular and the citizenry of the state in general are to be congratulated upon having as that Negro Senator, Dr. Hyram R. Revels of Natchez.

"As long as in freedom's cause the wise contend,
Dear to your county shall your fame extend."

Escorted to the bar of the Senate by Senator Charles Sumner, Senator-elect Hyram R. Revels of Mississippi took the oath of office under most favorable auspices, and then and there the ghost of human slavery silently and submissively "folded its tent and stole away." Was this queer Senator to be the fly in the ointment, the bull in the China shop, yea the government disgrace, was the burning question of the day. No, for Dr. Revels was