_Notary Public, D. C._

SOME NEGRO MEMBERS OF RECONSTRUCTION LEGISLATURES

_Texas_

J. H. Stewart who now lives in Austin.

Edward Patton, San Jacinto County, now living in Washington is in
Government service.

Nathan H. Haller, Brazoria County. House, 1892-94. Reelected and
counted out. Contested his seat and won.

R. L. Smith, Colorado County, 1895-99, now living in Waco. Is
president of the Farmers Bank and head of the Farmers Improvement
Association. For sketch of, see _Negro Year Book_, p. 322. For his
work in the Legislature, see attached letter.

Elias May, Brazos County, in the early days of Reconstruction.

R. J. Moore, Washington County, representative.

---- Gaines, senator, Lee County.

Copy.

COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WORK IN AGRICULTURE AND HOME ECONOMICS

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS
WACO, TEXAS, March 26, 1918.

PROF. MONROE N. WORK, Tuskegee Inst. Ala.

_Dear Mr. Work_:

I was elected in Nov. 1894 as representative for Colorado county and
was re-elected in 1896.

My majority in 1894 was 168 and in 1896 at the next election it was
450 as I recollect it.

I was appointed on the committee on education and on privilege and
election and on agriculture.

I introduced a bill restoring colored trustees which finally passed.

I fought a bill establishing separate waiting rooms for the races at
R. R. Station and killed it for four years.

I introduced a resolution inviting manufacturing cotton plants to come
to Texas. I introduced a resolution granting the use of the Hall of
the House of Representatives to the colored citizens of Austin to hold
their memorial services for Fred Douglas. When one understands the
race feeling in the South this was indeed a triumph. I introduced a
bill establishing a college course as a part of our curriculum at
Prairie View Normal which passed carrying with it a grant of fifty
thousand acres of land.

I worked hard to help carry a bill through making any peace officer
automatically lose his office whenever a lynching took place in his
county. This bill passed but was declared unconstitutional by the
supreme court. I was appointed by the speaker as a member of the
visiting board for Prairie View State Normal. As a member of the
committee on privileges and Election I single handed fought for a
colored man elected from Brazoria county, N. H. Haller by name who had