ty led by Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt effected the
nomination from the floor of John R. Lynch, a distinguished man of
color of Mississippi, and the vote by delegates elected him to the
position by 431 to 387 given to Mr. Clayton.[25] Frederick Douglass
received one vote for the nomination for President in 1888.[26]

After the complete undoing of the Reconstruction the Negroes were at a
loss politically. A number of the foremost Negro politicians, among
whom were Frederick Douglass, John R. Lynch, B. K. Bruce, John M.
Langston, John C. Dancy, and a few others, were given positions in the
service of the Federal Government of high sounding titles and little
importance, such as Registrar of the Treasury, Recorder of Deeds,
Auditor of the Navy and diplomatic posts in Negro countries. A greater
number of Negroes found an outlet in the civil service. Even up until
the present day it is an ardent desire of the Negro to obtain a civil
service appointment. In these positions the Negroes were able to earn
a comparatively easy living but were not able to do anything
constructive for the uplift of their people.

The Negroes, however, had continued to support the Republican party to
the full extent of their strength. But it soon became clear that the
support of Negro leaders was little more than an effort directed
toward obtaining a few unimportant offices. The Republicans, having
long since discovered that the Negro vote of most communities can be
changed neither to harm nor to help them, have consequently ceased to
consider the danger of losing their support of great import. The
Democratic party, moreover, has continued almost unswervingly its
attitude of aloofness from the Negro. The onesidedness of the Negro
vote has been declared by some Negroes to be the cause of its
non-importance. With this political view some few of them have allied
themselves with the Democratic party, feeling that the division of the
Negro's vote may work an improvement in his political status. Because
of ex-President Taft's attitude of indifference toward the Negroes a
number of the Negro politicians supported Roosevelt's party in 1912
and many voted for Wilson in 1916.

With the Negro in this weak position, however, there developed in the
South a movement to remove from the Republican party the stigma of its
connection with the Negro by eliminating the members of that race from
the circles of control in the South. This movement has been ge