ny of them were promoted.
It can be said to the credit of Secretary Lamar that during his
administration very few changes were made in the clerical force of the
department for political reasons, and, as a rule, the clerks were
treated with justice, fairness and impartiality.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS BILL

It was during the administration of President Harrison that another
effort was made to secure the enactment by Congress of the necessary
legislation for the effective enforcement of the war amendments to the
National Constitution,--a Federal Elections Bill. Mr. Lodge, of
Massachusetts, was the author of the bill. But the fact was soon
developed that there were so many Republicans in and out of Congress who
lacked the courage of their convictions that it would be impossible to
secure favorable action. In fact there were three classes of white men
at the South who claimed to be Republicans who used their influence to
defeat that contemplated legislation. The white men at the South who
acted with the Republican party at that time were divided into four
classes.

First, those who were Republicans from principle and conviction--because
they were firm believers in the principles, doctrines, and policies for
which the party stood, and were willing to remain with it in adversity
as well as in prosperity,--in defeat as well as in victory. This class,
I am pleased to say, while not the most noisy and demonstrative,
comprised over seventy-five per cent, of the white membership of the
party in that part of the country.

Second, a small but noisy and demonstrative group, comprising about
fifteen per cent of the remainder, who labored under the honest, but
erroneous, impression that the best and most effective way to build up a
strong Republican party at the South was to draw the color line in the
party. In other words, to organize a Republican party to be composed
exclusively of white men, to the entire exclusion of colored men. What
those men chiefly wanted,--or felt the need of for themselves and their
families,--was social recognition by the better element of the white
people of their respective localities. They were eager, therefore, to
bring about such a condition of things as would make it possible for
them to be known as Republicans without subjecting themselves and their
families to the risk of being socially ostracized by their white
Democratic neighbors. And then again those men believed then, and