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Public Men And Things
(By the Sage of the Potomac)

I employed the Burns Detective
Agency last week to get a clew on the
new Black Cabinet, and while the
whole force has been on the job, they
reported to me yesterday, that they
can't get a line on it. On the 4th of
March the Black Cabinet was com-
posed of about fifty aspirants, and
now you can't get one of them to
even admit he was ever a candidate.
Bishop Walters, at his personally con-
ducted banquet, stepped out of the
line of his judiciously chosen words,
to tell the Republican officeholders
that they might as well pack their
trunks, for his boys were going to
land their places. When he said that,
Frank Wheaton waved his red ban-
danna, Harrisburg Wood took off his
glasses and danced the tango. Jim
Ross forgot the gout down in his
number eights and yelled himself
hoarse, Peter Smith just threw a fit,
Nap Marshall gave the Chautauqua
salute, and Charley Barnes and the
rest of the live ones stood up and
made googoo eyes at prospective jobs.
Then R. Wordy went off and wrote
four hundred and forty-eleven notices
to his newspapers saying that we
would have another Black Cabinet
mighty soon, and Bishop Walters
would name every mother's son of
them. That's been two months ago,
and yet the first member of the new
Black Cabinet ain't arrived, nor even
had a chance to look at Woody in
the Big House. Peter Smith is still
waiting on corns and bunyuns, Harris-
burg Wood has gone home in disgust,
Frank Wheaton is wearing his silk
tile out looking the part of a minister
to Liberia without the appointment,
Jim Ross is somewheres in the wiles
of Michigan looking for a dugout
where he can hide himself, Nap Mar-
shall ain't saying a word —just as
mum as an oyster after the bivalve
has been dropped in the soup turene,
and Charley Barnes is looking for a
job in some town not quite so stren-
uous as Washington. And R. Wordy.
who was handed a lemon by the
whole bunch, is cogitating to him-
self: "If I had of only stop to think
twice." But the Bishop made every-
body believe he was next and could
hand out plums by the gross. And I
guess he thought so himself. The
Bishop, who is an amateur in politics,
was handed a green lemon. The old
Black Cabinet is disfigured beyond re-
demption. They are scattered to the
four winds, and the little room down
to Jim Grays, where they used to
meet every day and solve all State
and financial problems, will see them
no more. I kinder hate it 'cause
Woody didn't limber up and hand
these Negro Democrats something.
Getting right down to brass tacks, it
don't help the race, nor the Negro
Republicans, to have Woody refuse
them a handout. I'm mighty sorry
for Bishop Walters, 'cause he worked
hard, and meant to serve his race.
And I am mighty sorry for the bunch
of aspirants who hung around here
till they blew their last nickle for a
blind robin waiting for something to
turn up. But it sure does look, as
though there will be nothing doin' for
Ham for the next four years. I guess
Kelly Miller will tell all about how
the Negro Democrats missed connec-
tions with this administration in the
next number of his (Kelly Miller's)
periodical.

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