the forties, where their children
could be educated. After the war Mrs. West, with her husband whom she
had met and married in Ohio, returned to North Carolina, prepared to
enter upon the work of uplifting the newly emancipated of their
unfortunate race; and now well advanced in years, she could look over
many years of active useful service in the cause of her people. It was
the evening for the regular monthly meeting of the Union Aid Society of
which Mrs. West was President, and several members had already arrived;
but in such a season such business for which a society of this kind was
organized would doubtless be neglected, so pregnant was the air with the
all absorbing subject--politics.

But the Union Aid Society is composed exclusively of women. What of
that? Some of our most skilled politicians in the South are among the
women of both races. Although they do not take the stump and sit upon
platforms in public assemblages, they are superior house-to-house
canvassers, and in their homes noiselessly urge the men to do their
duty. For earnest persistence and true loyalty to the party of her
choice, the Negro woman of the South outdoes her sister in white. Give
the ballot to the women of the South, and give her dusky daughters an
equal show, and a Solid South would be a thing of the past; for the
Negro woman is the most loyal supporter of Republican principles in that
section. So radical is the Negro woman, that it is worth a husband's, or
brother's, or sweetheart's good standing in the home or society to assay
to vote a Democratic ticket. Such a step on the part of a Negro man has
in some instances broken up his home. The Spartan loyalty of the
Southern white woman to the Confederacy and the Lost Cause was not more
marked than is the fidelity of the Negro woman to that party which stood
for universal freedom and the brotherhood of man, and whose triumphant
legions so ignominiously crushed Freedom's sullen and vindictive foe.
Although the Government provides for the annual placing of a small flag
upon the grave of each of the thousands of heroes now sleeping in the
Southland, it is the dusky fingers of the Negro woman, perfumed by the
sweet incense of love and gratitude that places the lilac, the rose and
forget-me-not there.

The Northern white woman in the South, in order to maintain her social
caste, generally allows her patriotism to cool. But the Negro woman
sings patriotic airs on each 30th of May as she twines