From the moment African-Americans could set pen to paper, there was the black-owned newspaper. The role of the black press reached its heights in the postbellum era, as millions of the formerly enslaved black Americans hungered for a voice amidst the clamor and fuss of Reconstruction. This voice grew increasingly important as America shifted towards the Progressive Era, where white newspapers and writers hashed out their thoughts on the “negro problem,” nearly erasing the role in which blacks played in their own lives. Not only were black-owned newspapers a source of information, but they were a sign of a thriving community–when blacks formed neighborhoods in urban areas, or even founded their own towns, the existence of at least one newspaper showed others the success and relative prosperity of the black inhabitants.
One of the most famous and influential black newspapers of the Progressive era was The Washington Bee. The Bee was published weekly from 1882 through 1922, and William Calvin Chase was its sole proprietor and editor until his death in 1921. Chase, a native Washingtonian born in 1854, was also born free, and was college educated and a lawyer, which placed him in a unique position during the highly-charged atmosphere for blacks around the time he became editor of The Bee. In his 1891 book, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, Irvine Garland Penn described The Bee’s reputation thus: “Nothing stings Washington City, and in fact, the Bourbons of the South, as The Bee.” The paper’s own motto “Honey for Friends, Stings for Enemies” summed up Chase’s approach to journalism; he could be fulsome with praise and sincerity towards those he respected, but just as easily scorned and castigated those he didn’t. As a result, many of Chase’s friends found his blunt style indiscreet, for he “never failed to expose, in the most condemnatory manner, any fraud unjust attack or evil that caught his vigilant eye.”
However, this sort of disapproval spurred Chase on to action, and though he was a Republican and served as District of Columbia delegate to the party’s national convention in 1900 and again in 1912, he did not mince words about which policies he did not like. Chase also didn’t mince words when it came to black Americans themselves, and he considered it his mission to shine a light on the racism and exclusivity of the black upper-class Washingtonians, who frequently looked down upon the masses of Southern blacks who began to move into the city, and who were appalled by Jim Crow, as they considered themselves a buffer between “low class” blacks and whites. He also called out the black leaders of the day, finding them either too too accommodating or too theoretical to make much of a difference in the lives of ordinary black Americans.
So fearless was Chase, he did not mind losing a government post:
It is related, that on one occasion when Mr. Chase called on President Cleveland, he showed [the President] a copy of The Bee, in which [Chase] had said that in consideration of the number of outrages perpetrated in the South upon the Afro-Americans by the whites, it would cost the lives of millions to inaugurate Grover Cleveland, if elected. Mr. Chase did not deny being the author of the article. Although Cleveland was elected and inaugurated without any bloodshed, and Chase supported in a measure his administration, yet he received his discharge a few weeks afterward, at the instance of the president and Secretary of War Endicott, from the position he held in the government printing-office.
This sort of brazenness had more than once brought Chase to court, where he was five times indicted for libel, and acquitted in every case except one, in which he was fined fifty dollars. Nonetheless, Chase was known and respected by nearly every African-American newspaper editor, writer, etc, regardless of agreement with his editorials, because of the steadfastness with which he held to what he thought was right.
Read issues of The Washington Bee, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
President reported him as saying “I do not need to give you an explanation of the Booker Washington affair, do I?” President Roosevelt went on to say that he was amazed that he could be so misunderstood by those who had criticized him. Maryland Democrats seized upon this to ridicule the President and the Republican Party, and many claimed that the Booker Washington incident would usher in a Democratic victory.
Firstly, because it was a private, family affair. Washington had previously dined with a president (McKinley), and President Cleveland had invited Frederick Douglass to the White House, but both were in official, public capacity. By inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner as though he were just another honored guest was shocking, repulsive, outrageous, offensive. Secondly, because it implied that President Roosevelt was opposed to racism and the ever-expanding Jim Crow laws. And lastly, because it implied, for W.E.B. DuBois-supporters, that Washington’s socio-political stance had been granted sanction by the highest in the land.
There is no other expression of American democracy than the exit of one President for another. Whether the President has served one term or two–or in the case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, four–the inauguration ceremony is one of excitement, triumph and the bittersweet. The first inauguration was held on April 30, 1789, in New York City. The day was originally set for March 4, which gave electors from each state just about four months after Election Day to cast their ballots for president. This was changed in 1937 by the 20th Amendment, which changed Inauguration Day to noon on January 20, in time for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term. Thomas Jefferson became the first president to be sworn in at our nation’s capital, though D.C. did not official become the federal capital until 1801.
The inauguration of the President was attended by more or less pomp. The order of arrangements for the inaugural procession was assigned to a military officer. The following is the official program adopted and promulgated for the inaugural ceremonies of March 4, 1881, from which point it was free to elaborate upon:
After arriving at the Capitol, the President and President-elect were escorted to the Senate Chamber, while the troops and civic organizations massed in front of the building. The ceremonies attending the administration of the oath of office to the President-elect were under the direction of the Senate. After the conclusion of the inauguration ceremony in the Senate, the President was conducted to his carriage and attended by the guard of honor, who drove him to the reviewing stand erected for the purpose on Pennsylvania Ave north of the White House. If the new President chose to take immediate possession of the White House, the retired President and his First Lady awaited his arrival there to welcome him into the mansion, and formally yielded up its possession. A lunch was usually prepared by the direction of the retired President, at which the new President presides. After this, the retired President and the First Lady withdrew from the mansion to their temporary residence in the city.
The excitement of the day didn’t end there. It was customary to close the ceremonies of Inauguration with a grand ball, which was generally conducted under the auspices of a citizens committee of arrangements, appointed at a public meeting. Arousing much comment and curiosity was the costliness of the ball and more importantly, what the new First Lady was to wear. Mrs. McKinley dazzled with a gown made of silver cloth. The groundwork was of white satin, heavily woven with silver thread in a lily design. The full, sweeping train was plain, but measured two and a half yards in length. The left side was open over a panel of seed pearls, embroidered on satin, and at the bottom, a flounce of Venetian point lace cascaded, partially concealed beneath the train. The right side of the skirt was also slashed open half way up and under that was also am embroidered petticoat of pearls. Special silk was woven for Mrs Roosevelt’s inaugural gown, and it was shipped from New Jersey to Washington days before March 4. Of heavy brocade, with a background of blue, through which, at intervals, was woven the figure of a dove. The filling was of gold tinsel. Appropriately, given the occasion and the wearer, the pattern was destroyed, allowing Edith Roosevelt a one-of-a-kind ballgown. 1909 saw Mrs. Helen Taft in “one of the handsomest models ever seen in Washington.” A severely plain underdress of heavy white satin formed the foundation. Over this was draped with white chiffon, on which a pattern of goldenrod, the National flower, was embroidered in silver. The design was repeated in the embroidery of the long Court train, and point lace formed the sleeves and served to trim the decolletage. In her hair was a diamond aigrette, and around her neck, a pearl dog collar.
The inaugural ball was considered by many the quadrennial tribute paid by politics to society. There had only been but two intermission in the series of inaugural balls to commemorate the accession of a newly-elected President. The earlier balls were held on sites then deemed fashionable. Martin Van Buren had two balls given in his honor, William Henry Harrison gave three, James K. Polk had two, one of which was charged $10 a ticket and the other $2, Zachary Taylor had three balls given in his honor, and President Pierce would up being inaugurated in a snowstorm, and had no ball given him. By the 1880s, the Pension Building was staked as the official ballroom for the inauguration ball. Tickets to President Cleveland’s ball cost $5 apiece, and fully 12,000 guests were provided for in the committees plans. The ball was catered to meet vigorous appetites: over 60,000 oysters, 10,000 chicken croquettes, 7,000 sandwiches, 150 gallons of lobster salad, 300 gallons of stewed terrapin, 150 boned turkeys, 300 gallons of chicken salad, 1,300 quarts of ice cream and hundreds of pounds of pate de foie gras.