第98章

"It will be curious to watch young Flipper's career as an officer. Time was when army officers were a very aristocratic and exclusive set of gentlemen, whether they still hold to their old ideas, or not, we do not know. There seems to be enough of the old feeling left, however, to justify the belief that until some other descendants of African parents graduate at the institution, Flipper will have a lonely time. During his cadetship, we learn from no less an authority than the New York Tribune, 'the paper founded by Horace Greeley,' that he was let severely alone by his fellow-students. According to that paper, one of the cadets said, 'We have no feeling against him, but we could not associate with him. It may have been prejudice but still we couldn't do it.' This shows very clearly the animus which will exist in the army against the colored officer. If at West Point, where he had to drill, recite, eat, and perhaps sleep with his white brothers, they couldn't associate with him (notwithstanding the fact that the majority of these whites were Northern men and ardent advocates of Radicalism, with its civil rights and social equality record), how can it be expected that they will overcome their prejudices any more readily after they become officers. The Tribune thinks they will, and that in time the army will not hesitate to receive young Flipper, and all of his race who may hereafter graduate at West Point, with open arms; but the chances are that the Tribune is wrong. Your model Yankee is very willing to use the negro as a hobby-horse upon which to ride into place and power, but when it comes to inviting him to his house and embracing him as a brother he is very apt to be found wanting. The only society Lieutenant of Cavalry Flipper can ever hope to enjoy is that which will exist when there are enough of his race in the army to form a corps d'Afrique, and by that time he will be too old to delight in social pleasures. Meanwhile he will be doomed to a life of solitude and self-communings, and be subjected to many such snubs as the venerable Frederick Douglass has but recently received at the hands of that champion mourner for the poor African--Rutherford B, Hayes."The New York Tribune is right. The army is officered by men, not by West Point cadets, who are only students and boys.

(From the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News.)

CHEERS FOR FLIPPER.

"The miscegenationists and social equality advocates are making a great deal of noise over the facts, first, that a negro has graduated at West Point, and holds to-day a commission in the United States Army; and second, that when he went up to receive his diploma, he was, alone of all the members of his class, the recipient of a round of applause. Great things are augured from these two circumstances, especially the latter.