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Negro Leader in Daughters of Veterans

[[image:  portrait photograph entitled MRS. ELIZABETH HARLEY FORBES]]

It is pleasant to recall that though American race prejudice has not at all "quit doing business at the old stand," there are not wanting instances in which it seems to be asleep.  Evidence of this comes to us from many quarters of late, but especially in Boston, where Mrs. Elizabeth Harley Forbes was recently made president of the Daughters of Veterans organization.  Mrs. Forbes' election was unanimous, and was a foregone conclusion long before the evening of balloting, so much so that not even the name of an opposition candidate was at any time suggested.  The particular organization under consideration was Mrs. John A. Andrew, Tent I, D. of V., and as is well known, the Tent is one of the allied organizations of the Grand Army of the Republic.  It is the oldest Tent in the State of Massachusetts, where there are nearly half a hundred now in existence, and other than Mrs. Forbes is made up entire of a white membership in the old Dorchester district, the former home of the great Edward Everett family.

Mrs. Forbes is one of the popular matrons of Boston and the wife of George W. Forbes, who himself holds the unique position of librarian in a white community.  She was born in Kingston, N.Y., and was the daughter of the late W.H.G. Harley, himself an honored veteran of the Civil War and well known as a local leader in his day.  She is a graduate of Kingston Academy and a most accomplished musician.  She began her career in the Tent as musician and has risen from that post through every grade to the presidency which she now fills.  Though modest and unassuming, her worth is everywhere recognized.  Besides her Tent work Mrs. Forbes is treasurer of the Charminade Musical Club, an organization whose membership includes the leading music lovers of colored Boston.  Her paper on "Charminade" and her music at a recent meeting of the 

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THE COLORED AMERICAN MAGAZINE.  167

organization was most instructive and interesting on that great French woman composer.  Mrs. Forbes' election as president of the Tent probably received more newspaper comment than any mere social incident of recent years.

The Boston Transcript, itself an old and conservative paper, published her speech of acceptance with comment as follows:

"In Massachusetts, at least, worth has its place regardless of race or creed.  A bit of honorable recognition which has fallen to the cultivated colored people of Boston is the installation of Mrs. Elizabeth Harley Forbes, wife of George W. Forbes of the West End Library (himself a classical scholar of sound erudition), as president of Mrs. John A. Andrew Tent I, Daughters of Veterans, of Dorchester, this week.  Mrs. Forbes was elected unanimously by the Tent of which she is a member, and is one of the very few colored members of the order of the Daughters of Veterans.  Tent I is the oldest, and therefore the most conservative, in the State.  Mrs. Forbes' speech is worth examining:

"Sister Installing Officer and Members of TentI. - In accepting the honor and insignia of office with which you have invested me this evening, I have again to thank the sisters for this high expression of their regard and the uniform courtesy which they have continued to show me throughout my membership here.  Words cannot express my deep sense of gratitude on this occasion for surely there could be no greater evidence of confidence and friendship than when you unanimously elected me, however unmerited, as president of this Tent.  But while I am deeply grateful for your kind consideration manifested toward me, I am not at all unmindful of the responsibilities and duties which this office imposes, and am already beginning to realize the truth of the well-known saying that 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.'  But it is not my intention to weary you with any lengthy remarks at this time, for in our organization as well as in all others, an ounce of performance is worth a tone of promises.  I will only add further that if I may be said to have any ambition at all in connection with this Tent, it might be said of my work here what George Eliot has written of the celebrated Sicilian heroine Agatha:

" 'And rank to her meant duty various, 
But equal in its worth, done worthily;  
Command was service;  humblest service done
By willing and discerning souls, was glory.' "