(article is
from the family section of the Jamestown Post-Journal)
4/24/2004 - Chautauqua County Lawyers Oppose Segregation: The Robert H. Jackson-Albion
W. Tourgee Connection
By Kathleen A. Crocker
During the 2003 annual book sale at the James Prendergast Library, Greg Peterson,
president of the Robert H. Jackson Center, had the opportunity to purchase a
copy of Button's Inn by Albion W. Tourgee. Its inscription ''to RMS
from RHJ - 1938'' was of particular significance because Peterson immediately
identified the initials to be those of Ruth M. Sternberg, Robert H. Jackson's
secretary.
Both Jackson, 1892-1954, and Tourgee, 1838-1905, were former Chautauqua County
residents. Although not contemporaries, questions arose about the possible connection
between the two illustrious men. This local history vignette primarily portrays
the role of the lesser known Tourgee in the nation's struggle for civil rights,
a most appropriate topic in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v.
Board of Education in May 2004.
''Jim Crow'' Laws
Although discrimination existed in the United States in the late 1880s, its
practice was often inconsistent. According to historian C. Vann Woodward, ''segregation
on trains was not complete in any state nor was it enforced by law.'' At times,
Negroes rode first class along with whites, especially in ''the seaboard states
of the South'' until Jim Crow arrived on the scene.
The term ''Jim Crow'' laws supposedly originated in 1832 when minstrel ''Daddy''
Rice performed his black-face act based on the antics of a slave named Crow.
Fifty years later, several southern states began to adopt Jim Crow laws that
refused equal privileges to Negroes on railroads. Instead, blacks were required
to ride in separate cars or behind partitions, isolated from their white counterparts.
Unfortunately, the post-Civil War amendments to the Constitution and the equality
they professed were not honored as Negroes had hoped, and racism remained a
major issue in the United States for many more decades.
Who was Albion Winegar Tourgee
Born in Williamsfield, Ohio, in 1838, Albion W. Tourgee, the son of farmers,
resided in the Northeast for most of his youth. An 1862 law graduate of the
University of Rochester, his career plans were interrupted after he enlisted
in the Union army. After a debilitating injury sustained at the Battle at Bull
Run, he was captured in 1863 and imprisoned by the Confederates.
That same year, he not only married a woman from his home state but, also, reenlisted,
resigned and returned to Ohio where he was admitted to the bar the following
year. When he moved to nearby Erie, he served as principal of Erie Academy and,
also, worked for the Erie Dispatch.
In 1865 he moved to Greensboro, N.C., to practice law. In addition, he spent
one year as editor of the Greensboro Union Register, a Republican newspaper.
For several years, Tourgee played an important role in local government. He
was instrumental in the creation of the North Carolina Constitution and served
with distinction as Judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina from 1868
to 1874 where his passion resulted in a strict adherence to law and justice.
For example, he not only supported the inclusion of blacks on jury lists but
reportedly ''fined attorneys in his court who called blacks 'niggers.'''
Noted for his ''zeal and ability,'' Tourgee relentlessly fought against segregation
and the Ku Klux Klan, in particular, who had targeted him. Biographer Dibble
vividly captured Tourgee's attitude toward the KKK in this manner: ''I wouldn't
mind yellow fever, cholera, fleas, earthquakes, vertigo, smallpox, cannibalism,
icebergs, sharks or any other name or shape of horror... provided always there
are no KKK.''
After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 1878 and with increasing financial
difficulties, Tourgee resumed his writing career on a fulltime basis. The former
carpetbagger is best known for his novels, social commentaries that proved far
more effective than his earlier political activism in the South. Otto H. Olsen
believed that Tourgee achieved national and international acclaim for his initial
literary works because his [Tourgee's] were the ''first influential fictional
accounts of southern Reconstruction to appear in print ... [and were] primarily
concerned with the illogic and injustice of the race prejudice fostered by slavery.''
Foremost among these was his successful A Fool's Errand, depicting
a carpetbagger's life, in which Tourgee advocated education and economic independence
of Negroes in order to save the South. This 1879 political fiction, obviously
autobiographical, sold 200,000 copies and was translated into several languages.
The following year, Bricks without Straw, another Reconstruction novel,
shared the same recognition.
In the preface to his 1889 publication Hot Plowshares, Tourgee explained
the premise behind his novels.
''Many years ago the author conceived the idea that he might aid some of his
fellow countrymen and countrywomen to a juster comprehension of [the oppressive
racist environmentmainly of the post-Civil War South] by a series of works which
should give, in the form of fictitious narrative, the effects of these distinct
and contrasted [Northern and Southern] civilizations upon various types of characters
...''
Disenchanted and disillusioned with the lack of political support in the South,
the Tourgee family left North Carolina to return north. While lecturing in Western
New York, they saw an illustration in a newspaper that caught their attention:
a white mansion located in the Chautauqua county seat that overlooked the northern
end of Chautauqua Lake. Although they did not move in immediately, Tourgee and
his wife Emma bought the Victorian mansion which still stands at 96 South Erie
Street in Mayville. Named Thorheim, or ''fool's home,'' the proximity of the
house and some additional acreage to the cultural Chautauqua Institution proved
to be the ideal writer's retreat for Tourgee.
While attending Westfield Academy, his daughter, Aimee, an only child, became
fascinated by an old house on the Portage Road that she passed daily en route
to school from Mayville. Because of her interest, Tourgee wrote Button's
Inn in 1887 which immortalized the once popular inn, tavern and stagecoach
stop of significance to Chautauqua county travelers 50 years earlier. Today
a marker is located at the approximate location to indicate its importance to
local history.
Except for lecture tours, many at the Chautauqua Institution, Tourgee spent
most of his time in this bucolic setting from 1885 until he moved to France
in 1897. While a Mayville resident, he also contributed political articles to
national magazines and newspapers and founded The Continent, a literary
weekly published in Philadelphia from 1882 to 1884.
The Jamestown Evening Journal reported that in 1882 Tourgee delivered
a speech on ''the moral responsibility of the press'' to the attendees at the
26th Annual Convention of New York Press held in Jamestown. In 1891 he was appointed
honorary professor of legal ethics in the Buffalo Law School. He was a frequent
lecturer on that topic and was honored to deliver their commencement address.
He and his wife are remembered as active community members, very social and
interested in the preservation of the small village of Westfield, including
its trees. Biographer Dibble referred to Tourgee as ''the leading citizen of
the sleepy little hamlet and the recipient of many local honors.''
However, his wife Emma's extant diaries portray many of her husband's shortcomings.
While she tried to manage their increasing financial problems to avoid impending
bankruptcy and assisted him with his literary works, she became frustrated and
irritated at Tourgee's laziness, especially ''when the lure of the rod overcame
him.''
Despite his relocation to the Northeast, as a political writer who had personally
experienced inequities in the South, Tourgee's advice continued to be sought.
He received volumes of mail from discontent and bitter Southern veterans, Negroes
and ordinary citizens. The counselor was even invited by President U. S. Grant
to share his perspective of the nation, especially the conditions in the South
after Reconstruction.
During President McKinley's administration, Tourgee was appointed U. S. consul
in Bordeaux, France, where he served from 1897 until his death in 1905. Although
he died abroad, his ashes were sent back to ''Thorheim'' and are buried in Mayville
Cemetery, commemorated by a 12-foot granite obelisk whose inscription reads:
''I pray thee then
Write me as one that loves his fellow-man''
Justice Robert H. Jackson's Involvement: Correspondence with Jamestown
Attorneys
When the United States Supreme Court once again chose to consider ''Jim Crow''
laws, Otto H. Olsen reported that Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson ''wrote
friends in Jamestown, near Mayville, of his having encountered the name of Albion
W. Tourgee, a Mayville resident, in connection with the school segregation decision
[then] pending before the court.'' Like Jackson, his friends Ernest W. Cawcroft
and Walter H. Edson were respected hometown attorneys, members of the Jamestown
and New York State bar associations and fellow Masons.
The following is an excerpt from that letter written on April 4, 1950, by Justice
Jackson from his chambers in the U. S. Supreme Court to Cawcroft and Edson:
''The Plessy case arose in Louisiana and how Tourgee got into it I have not
learned. In any event, I have gone to his old brief filed here, and there is
no argument made today that he would not make to the Court. He says, 'Justice
is pictured blind and her daughter, the Law, ought at least to be color-blind.'
Whether this was original with him, it has been gotten off a number of times
since as original wit. Tourgee's brief was filed April 6, 1896, and now, just
fifty-four years after, the question is again being argued whether his position
will be adopted and what was a defeat for him in '96 be a post-mortem victory.''
At that time, Justice Jackson knew only that Tourgee, a fellow Chautauquan,
was ''a prominent man in the law and one of some distinction as an author.''
After consulting the Dictionary of American Biography to learn more
about this man, Jackson concluded that the synopsis did not give Tourgee his
due praise and, with an obvious sense of pride in his own Chautauqua county
roots, Jackson appeared somewhat disappointed that ''the write-up does not mention
'our own local' Button's Inn among his books.''
(On Nov. 20, 1984, Jamestown attorney Tuby L. Scarpino contacted Robert M. Laughlin,
Chautauqua County attorney, suggesting that the above letter be filed at the
Chautauqua County Historical Society ''since it involves a major participant
in the segregation cases and whose brief filed in 1896 could be used in the
Brown v. Board of Education case, as Mr. Justice Jackson states.'')
On April 7, 1950, Ernest Cawcroft, a former newspaperman, candidly admitted
his ignorance to the Honorable Robert H. Jackson: ''I never knew that he [Tourgee]
was a lawyer and a judge, in fact, until I received your letter.''
Cawcroft was aware, however, of Tourgee's political career and that, after the
election of William McKinley, Tourgee had competed with Major E. P. Putnam of
Jamestown for the position of Consul General to Bordeaux, France.
Also on file at the Chautauqua County Historical Society is a personal letter
written the following week from Walter H. Edson to Justice Jackson. Edson, Jackson's
former law partner, confessed to the Justice that because Judge Tourgee had
been ''a friend in my time of need,'' Edson had followed Tourgee's career and
owned nearly all of Tourgee's books. Since his father Obed Edson was a dedicated
Chautauqua county historian, Walter, no doubt, would have had easy access to
local historical publications.
Edson considered Tourgee's stories ''Öintensely interesting and apparently
true to life in the South as he [Tourgee] found itÖ[his] books were written
for and reached a much larger public than mere partisans of either the North
or South.'' Edson confided to Jackson that he personally thought Button's
Inn was not a reflection of Tourgee's literary abilities.
Also in that letter, Edson made specific reference to Tourgee's work, Letters
to a King, a collection of essays written to the son of a friend, expounding
upon the author's philosophy of American government. This brief excerpt from
the Preface admonishes his young friend to ''Be a Man:''
''…the country expects, and has a right to expect, that you will protect
her interests, conserve her liberties, and devote yourself to her service with
...courage, devotion, self-sacrifice and intelligence…''
Edson informed Jackson that not only did their friend Frank Mott use Letters
to a King ''as a textbook for many of his speeches'' but that Edson, too,
had ''used it in preparation for a talk at a meeting of the Norden Club,'' a
local Swedish society.
Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka:
U. S. Supreme Court Decision
Fifty-eight years after Judge Tourgee's defeat, the United States Supreme Court
reversed the Plessy v. Ferguson decision regarding school segregation. On May
17, 1954 Chief Justice Earl Warren, on behalf of the unanimous Court, declared:
''We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate
but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.''
According to author and scholar James T. Patterson, who recently spoke about
his book at the Jackson Center, Justice Robert H. Jackson, a Northerner, ''had
no use for segregation, and he did not feel bound by precedents such as 'Plessy'.''
In a March 2004 interview for the Jamestown Post-Journal, John Q. Barrett,
the Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow to the Jackson Center, noted that ''While most
Supreme Court opinions rely on case law and precedent, it is not uncommon for
some opinions to rely on outside sources. Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954
decision that struck down the separate but equal system established in 1896's
Plessy v. Ferguson case, relied on studies showing the psychological harm of
segregation.''
Barrett continued, ''Justices are intellectual consumers. Histories, among other
areas of scholarship, are relevant to what they do. It's good to reach out to
look at and cite that kind of material. A wide span of inputs is what we want
the Supreme Court to have.''
Tourgee's Legacy
In his 2003 publication, Keith W. Medley wrote that ''Plessy v. Ferguson joined
the 1857 Dred Scott Decision and the 1954's Brown v. Board of Education as three
watershed cases in the Supreme Court's treatment of civil rights.'' An article
in The Supreme Court Historical Society Collection by D. Grier Stephenson credited
the Citizens' Committee and counsel because they ''...were able to have their
arguments displayed on the record - indeed, memorialized in Justice Harlan's
dissent - to instruct later generations.''
Yet, not until the 1950's did Justice Harlan, a Kentucky ex-slave holder, and
Tourgee, an ex-carpetbagger, receive acknowledgment as prophets in their pursuit
for racial equality.
Fifty years after Tourgee's death, racial tensions escalated once again in the
United States. On Dec. 15, 1963, Tourgee's passionate fight for equal rights
resurfaced in the Greensboro Daily News. Aware that Tourgee had sustained
an eye injury in his youth, the newspaper article made reference to ''A CHUNKY
ONE-EYED GHOST'' who was haunting the halls of Congress..." and cheering
on new champions of his program for federal aid to education.''
In 1969, biographer Olsen praised Tourgee as ''the nation's most persistent
and outspoken white champion of racial justice during the last decade of the
19th century.'' Olsen considered Tourgee's efforts ''Öan unyielding dedication
to equality and justice and an abiding faith in the inherent righteousness of
mankind. Despite the immediate failure of his cause, time has verified his claims,
and the very preservation of our success as a nation now appears to rest, in
part, upon the ultimate endorsement of his demands.''
''Seen through a contemporary lens,'' Medley concludes, ''Tourgee and the Comite
des Citoyens may actually have been before their time as they sought an interracial
grass-roots campaign to protect the rights of America's black citizens.''
Another significant observation was made by Bishop John Heyl Vincent, one of
the co-founders of the Chautauqua Institution, in a letter he wrote to Tourgee's
widow Emma: ''The Judge was a man of genius. He opened his heart to the few.
And it was a warm heart. He stood in literature for all that was high and full
of humanity. The world will not forget him.''
Representative Accolades for Tourgee
from ''the Tourgee Papers''
in the Chautauqua County Historical Society
''Resolutions read at the funeral exercises of Hon. A. W. Tourgee, at Mayville,
New York
Whereas, Albion W. Tourgee asd a soldier contributed to the overthrow of slavery,
and as lawyer, statesman, editor, judge and man of letters, was ever the consistent
advocate of equal rights and equal justice for the Negro; and,
Whereas, It is fitting that those whose rights he so ably defended should make
some expression of their appreciation of his services;
Now, Therefore, in the name of the colored people of the United States, be it
Resolved, That by the death of Albion W. Tourgee mankind has lost a brave soldier,
a learned jurist, a talented writer, and a rare idealist who placed humanity
above race, color, and artificial social distinctions.
Resolved, That we hereby tender to the widow and daughter of the deceased our
sincere and heartfelt sympathy in their bereavement, and present to them a copy
of these Resolutions as a record of the high esteem in which we shall ever hold
the name and memory of the deceased.''
(Signed) H. C. Smith, Ohio
D. C. Fisher, Ohio
C. W. Chesnutt, Ohio
Rev. G. Henry Morse, New York
J. Edward Nash, New York
William H. Talert, New York
Dr. Chas. E. Bentley, Illinois
H. A. W. Mebane, North Carolina
George A. Miller, Pennsylvania
Letter to the Widow and Family
of the late Judge Albion Tourgee
(handwritten)
October 30, 1905
Dear Friends:
The National Association of Colored Women desire to express to you their sympathy
in the loss of him who was to you, one beloved in the home, and to humanity,
friend, strong advocate, and defender of equal rights.
For the race we represent, he was ever ready to work zealously with pen and
voice, at a time when to do so was to imperil one's good name and honor, and
beyond that, even to risk one's life.
Yet knowing this, he fearlessly continued his policy of justice for all, writing
in the cause of the colored man, exposing all species of injustice practiced
upon the race, and unflinchingly presenting his own strong principles of right.
In such a friend whose writings in our defense expressed in language of the
highest intellectual order, always bespoke these noble principles, the race
has lost a staunch champion and defender.
We will therefore always cherish and honor the memory of Judge Tourgee, bequeathing
to our posterity the remembrance of his wise and thoughtful utterances in our
behalf.
To the dear widow whose 'unflinching courage, unfaltering cheer and steadfast
love,' he felt he owed much, we especially extend our most loving sympathy and
warm regard.
Please accept the accompanying floral emblem as a token of our many grateful
feelings for the noble stand ever taken by him whom we mourn, and believe us
to be,
Yours with esteem,
Miss Florence T. Ray,
Greenpoint Ave. Woodside, N. Y.
Secretary of the Auxiliary Com. of the National Assn. of Colored Women
Auxiliary Com.
Mrs. A. W. Wiley, Miss H. C. Ray, Mrs. S. J. S. Garnet, Miss M. A. Lyons, Mrs.
Dr. V. Morton Jones, Mrs. J. Jeno
Mrs. Josephine Lionel Yates,
President N. A. C. W.
Lincoln Institute, Jefferson City, Mo.
Exhibit and Display Opens May 29, 2004
at the McClurg Museum
Westfield, New York
The Chautauqua County Historical Society received a federal grant from the Institute
of Museum Library Services to create a permanent display titled ''The Lincoln
Legacy: Chautauqua County's Connection to the Great Emancipator.'' The exhibits
will explore themes which were important to the region in the mid-1800s, including
Abolition, Women's Suffrage, and the Civil War.
The exhibit will spotlight the lives of former county residents with unique
connections to the 16th president, among them Grace Bedell, the Cushing brothers,
Gov. Reuben E. Fenton, William H. Seward, and Albion W. Tourgee.
Compiled for the Robert H. Jackson Center for the 50th anniversary of Brown
v. Board of Education.
çKathleen A. Crocker, 2004