My Face Is Black Is True
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The officials asked him why the mutual benefit features were not mentioned prominently in the association’s national literature. He explained that “as in some other fraternal organizations” these benefits were controlled by the local councils. House and the other national officers and board “had nothing to do with the benefit fund, which remained in local hands.” In order for them to be able to check his responses, he provided the names and addresses of local council heads, who could provide the names of members who had received a death or sick benefit or funeral expenses, in New Orleans; Vicksburg, Mississippi; Atlanta; Kansas City, Missouri; and other cities. Postal and Justice Department files indicate no effort to investigate the work of the local chapters or even to make inquiries of them.
The officials also asked Dick whether House and Dickerson had attempted to recruit African Americans by leading them to believe they could collect pensions only by joining the Association, if and when legislation passed. He responded that he had heard rumors but found no evidence to support the charge and that none of the literature contained such inducements. Finally, departmental officials asked whether the association had any credibility at all since, surely, Dick knew that Congress would not enact pensions for the ex-slaves. By their calculations, at least 7 million possible recipients would receive $10 per month, which would amount to more than $210 million annually. No rational person could believe Congress would ever appropriate such amounts or even a quarter of the total.
The officials exaggerated the costs since only persons who had actually been held in servitude would have been eligible, not the entire black population. In 1900, only 21 percent of the African-American population, or about 1.9 million persons, had been born in slavery. Their numbers, like those of the veterans under the lucrative Union pensions provisions, were slowly diminishing due to deaths.7
House and the officers decided to invite more federal scrutiny of their activities by holding their sixth national convention in Washington, D.C., on October 29—November 1, 1901. The board also acted on Attorney Dick’s advice that the association reincorporate in Washington, D.C., in February 1902. It also issued new literature and membership certificates explicitly mentioning aiding the sick and burying the dead as local chapter functions. The Association also persuaded Republican congressman Edmond Spencer Blackburn of North Carolina to reintroduce the pension legislation in the House of Representatives, despite their experience with the Senate committee’s 1900 negative report.8
Their efforts seemed to have borne fruit when Dick reported to the Association board that all signals from the officials at the Post Office Department indicated that he had succeeded in lifting the fraud order. The department “had decided to let the organization have the use of the mails & that there would be no further interruption so long as the organization and its officers complied with the strict observances of the law. So I trust that the organization & its officers will bear this in mind and strive to obey the law in all its requirements.” He told them that the local chapters must strictly “act in compliance with the Constitution of the Supreme National Organization.” If they failed to do so, they would “impair their usefulness to the general cause for which the association is in existence.”9
House and the Association rejoiced at Dick’s good news, but he had been misled. Without telling him, government officials had not only continued the fraud order, they had enlisted the aid of a private organization to help destroy the ex-slave movement. The Grand Army of the Republic, founded in 1866 as an organization of veterans of the Union military during the Civil War, had become a powerful influence in electoral politics and had great success in increasing veterans’ pensions. Callie House and her association colleagues had no way of knowing that the commissioner of pensions, H. Clay Evans, had written to Eliakam “Ell.” Torrance, commander in chief, Grand Army of the Republic, on February 7, 1902, asking him to help squelch the movement. Torrance, a veteran of the Union Army’s Ninth Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, played a major role in reconciliation and reunion activities between white Union and Confederate veterans of the period. He served as chairman of the Gettysburg Fiftieth Reunion Committee. Commissioner Evans explained to Torrance that pension organizers had been too successful. The bureau knew of “ninety organizations… in a single southern state.” Each local chapter was constituted of at least twenty-five members. Some of the organizers were “impostors,” he told Torrance, and at least two white men who had taken advantage of the situation had been convicted and sent to prison. But “More real harm is probably done by…regular agents…arousing, as they do, false hopes concerning a supposedly overdue restitution…or reparation for historical wrongs, to be followed by inevitable disappointment, and probably distrust of the dominant race and of the Government.” He wanted Torrance to have department commanders in the South “protect members of the order and others associated with them by advising post commanders as to wherein the movement has been used by designing persons to live at the expense of the colored people through grossly fraudulent representations,” and warned that members should have nothing to do with the idea. Since there would be no reparations, suppressing the movement served the interest of the government and the ex-slaves.10
Now aided by the Grand Army of the Republic, the government continued to deny the organization the use of the mails. Dick told House and the other Association officers about a new third party to promote pensions. Some white former pension allies of Vaughan had “hit upon” the idea of organizing such a party, and when it was announced in Washington, Vaughan christened it “Vaughan’s Justice Party.” Vaughan had decided that “existing parties will never do justice to the south” by relieving them of the burden of ex-slaves by pensioning them. Dick thought that a party to support their cause was a bad idea. He sent the association’s board and the Pension Bureau a copy of his letter of March 21,1902, to Hadley Boyd, a Vaughan supporter, of Washington, D.C., who had asked for his help, saying that while he supported pensions, he thought the idea counterproductive. “History and experience teach me that but two substantial, permanent political parties can successfully exist under our form of government contemporaneously, and the more equally and evenly divided these two parties are in numbers, influence etc. the safer stands the government and its institutions.” He believed that if people energized themselves emphatically, they could get the existing parties to respond to their concerns. Parties spasmodically come into existence, but like “a meteor they flash across the political sky and then fall dead into the arms of mother earth.” Although there had been third-party challenges, including the Populists and Eugene Debs, none had been successful.11
Dick agreed with House and the other leaders of the association that they should regard President Roosevelt’s dinner with Booker T. Washington as a good omen. Emboldened, he sent Roosevelt press clippings, a petition, and a description of the association’s objectives and asked for his endorsement of the cause. He hoped Roosevelt would instruct the federal officials to tolerate the movement. He also insisted that the Association cooperate by forwarding to the Post Office Department any rumor of impostors. They apparently received no response from the White House, and no improvement occurred in official behavior toward the Association.12
As part of their strategy, still believing a lifting of the order imminent, on April 6, 1902, Callie House and the board accepted Dick’s advice to select new officers in the hope that this might please the government. Because she appeared to have become a specific target, House agreed to continue as an organization leader, traveling, lecturing, and enrolling members, but to no longer appear on the list of officers and board members. They also gave Dickerson the title of national lecturer and elected A. W. Rogers general manager, Reverend J. W. Clift president, and Robert E. Gilchrist of Washington, D.C., financial secretary. One month later Dick responded to the government’s request by taking Dickerson to a deposition at the Pension Bureau to show their willingness to help with the investigation of alleged imposters. He answered every
question, but bureau officials seemed more interested in the association than in pursuing anyone else.13
In response to a question, Dickerson answered that he had originally managed Vaughan’s organization when he had conceived the pension idea. However, Vaughan was not involved with the association. Dickerson told the officials that before he became a pension advocate he had taught school throughout Tennessee. When asked whether he had “collected thousands of dollars from these old ex-slaves all though the south,” he answered no. “The association have [has] collected it and a great deal was paid for publication and railroad fare.” He allowed that some of the money might have been embezzled by dishonest agents. In response to a query, he said he did not know whether any of the funds had gone to members of Congress to encourage their support of the legislation.14
Commissioner of pensions Henry Clay Evans (served April 1897-May 13,1902), Union veteran, businessman, and former member of Congress, believed that the movement should be stopped as a danger to public order whether its leaders were honest or not. “Men Recently Chosen for Diplomatic and Other Public Service,” Harper’s Weekly, 1897.
Ell Torrance, Minnesota judge who was commander of the veterans’ organization the Grand Army of the Republic, was asked by Evans to aid in crushing the movement.
Despite the complete cooperation and openness of the ExSlave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association, federal officials continued to enforce the fraud order. Withstanding the obstacles and strains, Mrs. House and her colleagues continued their work. On February 9, 1903, Nashville postmaster Wills wrote to the assistant attorney general at the Post Office Department that an enclosed news clipping from a local paper, The Nashville Tenn Daily News of February 6,1903, showed the continuation of the “same old steal.” It appeared that “Dicker-son, Callie House and others are still interested in the matter.” The news clipping gave Wills credit that the Association’s activities “were finally driven from here through the action of your department.” The article reported the arrest of B. F. Crosby in Montgomery, Alabama. Wills claimed he worked for the association. Furthermore, the paper stated that a newspaper published by the association at that time, the Freedmen’s Headlight, had promised the payment of pensions by a specific time.15
Upon inquiries from the Post Office Department, attorney Dick gave officials copies of the newspaper to review. Each edition of the Freedmen’s Headlight clearly stated that the pension bill had not passed. In one issue a front-page article by George Green, one of the founders of the New Orleans chapter, reported that the association continued to work despite the federal fraud order. As a result of its efforts, “there have been bills introduced six different times in the Louisiana Assembly on the subject.” He also went with a delegation of “southern colored gentlemen” lodge members from the Southwest, who presented a petition on behalf of those who wanted pensions to President Roosevelt. The president promised he would give the matter his “careful consideration.” The article went on to extol the work of Mrs. House and Dickerson but stated, “If we fail in our efforts it will be no more than other great moves have done, and the people of this great nation will give those who worked in good faith credit for asking the government for something for what we thought was just and right. We will be like the South. They fought for what they thought was right, hence our position in this matter.” The statements included no intimation that the legislation had passed.16
Crosby said he had been an Ex-Slave Association agent for four years. He had been arrested, according to The Nashville Tenn Daily News clipping of February 6,1903, when some local citizens complained that pensions did not arrive in January. However, in their eagerness to find criminal activity, neither Wills nor the other postal officials examined the Nashville newspaper very carefully. The same paper indicated that the language of the certificate included the following language:
This is to certify that Mrs. Linda White is a member of the Association, having paid the membership dues of fifty cents to aid the movement in securing the passage of the ex-slave bounty and pension bill The holder of this certificate agrees to pay ten cents per month to the local association to aid the sick and bury the dead.17
Neither the certificate nor the Freedmen’s Headlight asserted that the pension bill had passed. It also specifically affirmed the importance of the mutual-aid function of the association that so attracted members.
The association held a mass meeting in Washington, D.C., at Samaritan Temple between Second and Third on I Street, on February 12,1903, to gather support for the pension bill, which had been reintroduced for the new session of Congress by Congressman Spencer Blackburn of North Carolina. According to The Washington Post, the meeting was attended by “a large gathering of colored citizens of both sexes.” Dickerson told the group, “If the government don’t pay us a cent it will always owe us. The ex-slave bill is not a fraud.” The meeting passed a resolution thanking all those who supported the effort to pass the bill.18
As House continued her Association work, her disappearance from the list of officers confused postal officials. Inspector J. H. Wilson of the Washington, D.C., post office was assigned to solve the mystery. He expressed agreement with his bosses’ suspicions but found nothing illegal. Inspector Wilson wrote to Captain W. B. Smith, inspector in charge, that two ex-slave pension organizations operated in Washington, the Ex-Slave Association and S. P. Mitchell’s Industrial Council, a small expension organization. Wilson thought perhaps House had become active in the council since she was no longer an officer of the association. However, he had no evidence that she was. Whatever her role in the association, everyone knew she spent her time working in the southern states. He read the literature of the Industrial Council and the Association and saw nothing illegal. There simply was no information that would lead to extension of the fraud order against the association or its application to the Industrial Council. The government had no information on mailings or any possible House connection that supported legal action. But they continued to exclude the association from the mails anyway and kept watch on the Industrial Council for any signs of connections with House. The assistant attorney general promised to keep the case open, as “something might develop later.”19
The assistant attorney general and Post Office Department officials continued to reach conclusions about the movement without investigating the association’s local chapters or their activities in local communities. Government officials did not follow up on the names and addresses and other information provided by the association. Instead, the government investigated only to determine whether Callie House, Dickerson, or some individual possibly connected to them was continuing their organizing work. Following a policy of harassment and disdain for the organization’s existence and despite the lack of evidence of illegality and Dick’s assurances, the Post Office Department issued another fraud order against the Ex-Slave Association on October 28, 1903. The order prohibited the payment of money orders or the delivery of letters to the association or to Dickerson, Gilchrist, or any other officers. The 1899 order against House personally still stood. The reorganizations, the full disclosures, and the absence of Mrs. House from the official leadership had no positive effect with regard to relieving the government harassment.20
Then the U.S. Supreme Court strengthened the Post Office Department’s hand in dealing with alleged fraud. The high court had only once before reversed a postmaster’s decision and in no case did the Court deny the power of Congress to give unfettered authority to the Post Office Department. In the first test case under the 1895 amendments to the fraud section, American School of Magnetic Healing v. J. M. McAnnulty, (1902), the Supreme Court affirmed the postmaster general’s full and absolute authority over the mails. However, the high court did not agree that magnetic mind healing necessarily constituted fraud. Justice Rufus Peckham stated that the postmaster had no facts that proved that such healing did not work.21
Two years later in the Public Clearing House case, the Court denied a request
for an injunction to prevent enforcement after the Post Office issued an order. Public Clearing House acted as the fiscal agent for a voluntary association for unmarried people; each person paid $3 as an enrollment fee and $1 a month for sixty months. If the individual had not married in a year, he or she received a certificate worth $500. The Post Office Department decided that this was a lottery and the organization could not use the mails. Justice Henry Brown, with Justices David Brewer, Edward White, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, concurred in an opinion that had far-reaching consequences: “The postal service is by no means an indispensable adjunct to a civil government.” In other words, no one had the right to use the mails, and therefore matters concerning the post office were not subject to government rules of due process. This body of law gave no recourse to Mrs. House in her effort to have ex-slaves organize to use mail service as they expressed their citizenship rights to petition the government.22
While Callie House tried to keep the ex-slave pension cause alive, she hoped for some support from leaders in the Nashville African-American community, but they had other priorities. They were focused on the boycott of 1905, blacks’ response to a new state law specifically reinforcing segregation on streetcars, except for “nurses attending or helpless persons of the other race.” Blacks walked instead of riding public transportation until Preston Taylor and others organized their own transportation company. The company ultimately failed, in part because of a $42-a-car privilege tax on cars the white city government promptly enacted. Thereafter, the protestors settled into accommodating themselves to segregation, while poverty and racism still hampered the ex-slaves and their progeny in the poor black neighborhoods.23