Henry Ossian Flipper, the Colored Cadet at West Point Part 37

(From the Savannah (Ga.) Morning-News.)

"Lieutenant Flipper seems to have gone back on his Atlanta friends. He came home from West Point with a good Academy record, behaved himself with becoming dignity. The officers at the barracks treated him-- not socially, but as an officer of the army--with due respect, as did the citizens of Atlanta, who felt that he had won credit by his good conduct and success.

But in an evil hour the colored friends (?) of Flipper gave him a reception, and in full uniform he made them a speech. Now speech-making is a dangerous thing, and this colored warrior seems to have been made a victim of it. He distorted the official courtesies of the officers at the barracks into social courtesies, and abused the white people of the South because they did not give him and his race social equality. Not only were sensible colored people displeased with his remarks, but many white citizens who went to the meeting friendly to Flipper left disgusted with his sentiments."*

*If a man walks on the streets with me, invites me to his quarters, introduces me to his comrades, and other like acts of courtesy, ought I to consider him treating me socially or officially? I went to the garrison in Atlanta to pay my respects to the commanding officer. I expected nothing. I met an officer, who, with four others, had introduced himself to me on the cars. My official call had been made. He took me around, introduced me to the officers, and showed me all possible attention. I met another officer in the city several days after this. He offered cigars. We walked up and down the streets together.

Many times did we hear and comment upon the remarks we overheard: "Is he walking with that n.i.g.g.e.r?" and the like. He invited me into a druggist's to take some soda- water. I went in and got it, although it was never sold there before to a person of color. We rode out to the garrison together, and every attention was shown me by all. Another officer told me that before I came the officers of the garrison a.s.sembled to consider whether or not they should recognize me. The unanimous vote was "yes." Was all this official? No. It is the white people, the disappointed tyrants of Georgia, who try to distort social courtesies in official ones. The "many white"

people were some half-dozen newspaper reporters, whose articles doubtless were partly written when they came.

"Old Si" in his spectacles was prominently conspicuous among them.

(From the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News.)

A COLORED ARMY OFFICER.

"Lieutenant Flipper is his name. He is a living result of the policy of Radicalism which has declared from the first its determination that, under any circ.u.mstances, the American citizen of African descent shall enjoy all the privileges of his white brethren. Carrying out this determination, and not dismayed at the fate of colored cadet Smith, who figured so largely in West Point annals a few years ago, cadet Flipper was sent to that inst.i.tution to try his hand. He has graduated, and now holds the commission of Second Lieutenant of Cavalry in the United States Army, the first of his race who has ever attained such a position.

"It will be curious to watch young Flipper's career as an officer. Time was when army officers were a very aristocratic and exclusive set of gentlemen, whether they still hold to their old ideas, or not, we do not know. There seems to be enough of the old feeling left, however, to justify the belief that until some other descendants of African parents graduate at the inst.i.tution, Flipper will have a lonely time. During his cadets.h.i.+p, we learn from no less an authority than the New York Tribune, 'the paper founded by Horace Greeley,' that he was let severely alone by his fellow-students. According to that paper, one of the cadets said, 'We have no feeling against him, but we could not a.s.sociate with him. It may have been prejudice but still we couldn't do it.' This shows very clearly the animus which will exist in the army against the colored officer. If at West Point, where he had to drill, recite, eat, and perhaps sleep with his white brothers, they couldn't a.s.sociate with him (notwithstanding the fact that the majority of these whites were Northern men and ardent advocates of Radicalism, with its civil rights and social equality record), how can it be expected that they will overcome their prejudices any more readily after they become officers. The Tribune thinks they will, and that in time the army will not hesitate to receive young Flipper, and all of his race who may hereafter graduate at West Point, with open arms; but the chances are that the Tribune is wrong. Your model Yankee is very willing to use the negro as a hobby- horse upon which to ride into place and power, but when it comes to inviting him to his house and embracing him as a brother he is very apt to be found wanting. The only society Lieutenant of Cavalry Flipper can ever hope to enjoy is that which will exist when there are enough of his race in the army to form a corps d'Afrique, and by that time he will be too old to delight in social pleasures. Meanwhile he will be doomed to a life of solitude and self-communings, and be subjected to many such snubs as the venerable Frederick Dougla.s.s has but recently received at the hands of that champion mourner for the poor African-- Rutherford B, Hayes."

The New York Tribune is right. The army is officered by men, not by West Point cadets, who are only students and boys.

(From the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News.)

CHEERS FOR FLIPPER.

"The miscegenationists and social equality advocates are making a great deal of noise over the facts, first, that a negro has graduated at West Point, and holds to-day a commission in the United States Army; and second, that when he went up to receive his diploma, he was, alone of all the members of his cla.s.s, the recipient of a round of applause. Great things are augured from these two circ.u.mstances, especially the latter.

"It is reasoned that now, that a negro has at last been able to secure a commission in the military service of the country, the first step towards the recognition of his race on the basis of social equality is accomplished, by degrees prejudice will wear away, and, in course of time, black and white citizens of this republic will mingle freely and without reserve; and this, it is claimed, is shown by the applause with which the reception into the army of this African pioneer was greeted. For our part we don't see that these negro devotees and miscegenationists have any reason to rejoice. It is just as impossible to establish perfect social equality between the Anglo-Saxon and African races as it is to make oil and water unite. It is against nature, and nowhere in the world is the antipathy to such a mingling shown more than in the North, and by no people so strongly as by the very men who whine so incessantly and so pretentiously about 'men and brethren.' The negro in the South has always found the white man of the South to be his best and truest friend, and such will always be the case, notwithstanding that the Southern white will never consent to social equality with his fellow-citizen of African descent.

"As to the applause which greeted Flipper, that can easily be accounted for. Nothing is more likely than that at West Point there should have been gathered together a lot of old-time South-haters, who were ready to applaud, not so much to flatter Flipper as to show that they were happy over what they felt to be a still further humiliation of the South. That is all there is in that.

"We have no objections to such demonstrations of delight. As far as we are concerned they may be indulged in to the heart's content by those who so desire. But one piece of information we can give to the young colored Georgia lieutenant. If he thinks those who applauded him are going to invite him to their houses he will be greatly disappointed. And if he does not die of overeating until those invite him to dine with them, he will live to a good old age. Let him take the fate of the recognized leader of his race, Fred Dougla.s.s, as an example, and steer clear of his too demonstrative friends. Experience shows that so long as they can use him, they will be very profuse in their professions of friends.h.i.+p; but when that is done all is done, and he will find himself completely cast aside. If Flipper sees these words, let him mark our prediction."

"And many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many" (Matt. 24:11). Amen. That is all that article is worth.

(From the Monmouth Inquirer, Freehold, N.J.)

LIEUTENANT FLIPPER.

"When Congress founded West Point, to be a training school for those who were to be paid as public servants and to wear the public livery, we do not think that it was intended that the inst.i.tution should serve as a hotbed for the fostering of aristocratic prejudices and the a.s.sumption of aristocratic airs. Nor do we think that when Lincoln declared the negro a freeman, and ent.i.tled to a freeman's rights, either he or the nation designed that the dusky skin of the enfranchised slave should serve as an excuse for ignominy, torture, and disgrace. Yet here, this year, in the graduating cla.s.s from West Point, steps a young man among his white- skinned fellows, fiftieth in a cla.s.s of seventy-six members, whose four years of academic life have been one long martyrdom; who has stood utterly alone, ignored and forsaken among his fellows; who has had not one helping hand from professors or students to aid him in fighting his hard battle, and whom only his own talents and st.u.r.dy pluck have saved from entire oblivion. Yet in spite of all, he was graduated; he has left twenty-six white students behind him; he is a second lieutenant in the regular army, and the story of his struggles and his hard-won victory is known from Oregon to Florida. All honor to the first of his race who has stemmed the tide and won the prize.

"We do not think the faculty at West Point have done their duty in this matter. One word, one example from them, would have stopped the persecution, and it is to their disgrace that no such word was spoken and no such example set."

I have not a world to say against any of the professors or instructors who were at West Point during the period of my cadets.h.i.+p. I have every thing to say in their praise, and many things to be thankful for. I have felt perfectly free to go to any officer for a.s.sistance, whenever I have wanted it, because their conduct toward me made me feel that I would not be sent away without having received whatever help I may have wanted. All I could say of the professors and officers at the Academy would be unqualifiedly in their favor.