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WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH |
SCHOLARSHIP, THE NEGRO, RELIGION, AND POLITICS by FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER During the years in which William Sanders Scarborough was professor and then president at Wilberforce University, his scholarly activities in the field of linguistics, his work and writings in the field of race relations, his con- tributions in the areas of religious journalism and church organization, and his varied public services were significant.* Each of these demands some consideration. As was previously pointed out, his textbook in elementary Greek was pub- lished in 1881. In July of the next year, the American Philological Associa- tion, meeting at Harvard University, elected him to membership.1 The death of his father in October 1883 and his own serious illness, as well as a lack of library facilities, impeded his research activities, but he was enabled to ob- NOTES ARE ON PAGES 85-88 |
26 OHIO HISTORY
tain research materials through the good
will of W. E. A. Axon of England,
one of the editors of the Manchester
Guardian. This enabled him to prepare
his first philological paper, "The
Theory and Function of the Thematic Vowel
in the Greek Verb," presented at
Dartmouth College, July 8, 1884.2 He had
journeyed there from the Cambridge,
Massachusetts, area on a special car
with Professor William W. Goodwin of
Harvard, president of the philo-
logical association; Sir Richard
Claverhouse Jebb of Glasgow University,
who had just given the commencement
address at Harvard; and other classi-
cal scholars.3 At Hanover,
New Hampshire, seat of Dartmouth College, he
was the guest of Henry E. Parker,
professor of Latin languages and litera-
ture, as were professors William Dwight
Whitney of Yale, Thomas D. Sey-
mour of Yale, and Tracy Peck of Yale.
Scarborough was flattered by two
incidents, a call from a Dartmouth
student who told him that he had used
the Scarborough text at Kimball Union
Academy, and an invitation to a
reception for members of the association
at the spacious summer home of
Herman Hitchcock, part owner of the
Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York City.
The meeting closed with a trip over Lake
Memphremagog in Canada. Scar-
borough believed that the meetings had
opened to him "a new world of
thought and endeavor," bringing to
him inspiration and intellectual com-
radeship.
At the meeting of the association at
Yale in July 1885 he read a paper,
"Fatalism in Homer and Virgil."4
In July 1886 he attended the annual
meeting at Cornell University, Ithaca,
New York, and that of July 1887
at the University of Vermont,
Burlington.5
At the time of his election to the
philological association, only two Negroes
had received such recognition--Dr. E. W.
Blyden, an African scholar and
linguist, in 1880, and Professor R. T.
Greener in 1881. During the next
generation few American Negroes were to
pursue advanced classical studies,
much to Scarborough's regret.
In the meantime, Scarborough had been
elected to the Modern Language
Association and to the American Spelling
Reform Association. In 1888 and
1889 he contributed to Education three
discussions of problems arising in
"The Teaching of the Classical
Language." One was based on the interpre-
tation of ancipiti in Caesar's Gallic
Wars.6 Another was "On the Accent and
Meaning of Arbutus."7 The
third was "Observations on the Fourth Eclogue
of Virgil."8 The last of
these had been prepared for presentation to the
American Philological Association
meeting at Amherst College in 1888.
Since Scarborough had been unable to
attend, the paper had been read by
Professor L. H. Elwell, professor of
Greek and Sanscrit at Amherst. In
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 27
July 1889 Scarborough had journeyed to
Lafayette College to present a
paper on "Notes on Andocides."9
At the American Philological Association
meeting at Norwich Free Acad-
emy, Norwich, Connecticut, in July 1890,
a paper by Scarborough on "The
Negro Element in Fiction" was read
by title only, because of the author's
absence, but a summary was printed in
the Transactions of the association.10
In July 1891, at the meeting of the
association in Princeton, New Jersey, in
a discussion of "Bellerophon's
Letters," he sought to show that the art of
writing was not wholly unknown in
Homeric times, and that the word semata,
in relation to these records, might,
aside from its ordinary meaning (of
signs), also express the idea of written
characters, these epigramma being
real alphabetical characters. Because of
the lateness of the hour at the meet-
ing, his paper was presented by title
only but was printed in the publica-
tion of the association.11 In spite of
the loss of his professorship in 1892, he
and his wife strove to maintain his
professional contacts. Early in that year
he had published an article discussing
aspects of historical interpretation
found in Grote's History of Greece.12 During
the next year a paper on the
"Chronological Order of Plato's
Writings," originally presented to the
American Philological Association
meeting at the University of Virginia in
July, was published in Education.13 At
the meeting of the association in
Chicago in July 1893, he read a paper on
Plautus.14 When he journeyed to
Williams College in Massachusetts in
July 1894, to attend the meeting of
the philological association,
Scarborough arrived at midnight across the
river from the college. His color caused
him to be turned away from hotel
accommodations, so he had to spend the
night in a railroad tool shed. At
the meeting he read a paper showing that
in Greek and Latin the words
conveying the ideas of the three daily
meals, breakfast, dinner, and supper,
had variable meanings under different
circumstances.15
At the meeting of the association in
Cleveland in July 1895, he presented
a paper on "The Languages of
Africa."16 Similarly, at the annual meeting at
Providence, Rhode Island, in July 1896,
he discussed "The Functions of
Modern Languages in Africa."17
Two years later, at the regular meeting of
the association in Hartford,
Connecticut, in July 1898, he offered a paper,
"Iphigenia in Euripides and
Racine." It was read by title only and was
later published in the proceedings of
the organization.18 Afterwards, in ex-
panded form, it was published in Education
as two articles dealing with
"One Heroine--Three Poets:
Iphigenia As She Is Depicted by Euripides,
Racine, and Goethe."19
He also attended the annual meeting of
the association at Union College,
28 OHIO HISTORY
Schenectady, New York, in July 1902, and
read a paper on the use of certain
words in Demosthenes' De Corona.20
Because of his limited financial re-
sources he cut short his stay at the
meeting, but in spite of the drain on his
personal funds, he attended the next
annual meeting at Yale University in
July 1903. There he read a paper
entitled "Notes on Andocides and the
Authorship of the Oration Against
Alcibiades."21
In January 1907 he attended a joint
meeting of the eastern section of the
philological association and the
Archaeological Institute at Washington, D.C.
There he read a paper on "Notes on
Thucydides--Kateklasan," in which he
took exception to the translation made
by an English editor.22 In December
of the same year he offered a paper
which was read by title only at the
annual meeting of the association in
Chicago. It dealt with "The Greeks and
Suicide," and a summary of it was
published.23
He prepared a paper on "Notes on
Disputed Passages in Cicero's Letters"
for the annual association meeting at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,
December 1909.24 The local committee on
arrangements belatedly found
that the headquarters hotel would not serve
dinner to Negro members of the
association, so he did not make the trip
to Baltimore, and his paper was
read by title only.
In December 1911 he attended the annual
meeting of the association at
Pittsburgh.25 There he
stopped at the Schenley House, a hotel which had
previously accepted only one Negro
guest--Booker T. Washington. A year
later he attended the joint meeting of
the association and the Archaeological
Institute at George Washington
University and at the Shoreham Hotel.26 He
was the house guest of friends but
attended a smoker at the hotel and a re-
ception at the home of Mrs. Charles
Foster, widow of an Ohio governor and
cabinet officer under Harrison. He met
Edward Everett Hale, then chaplain
of the United States Senate, who had
been an early trustee of Wilberforce.
In December 1913 he went to Harvard to
the association meeting, but for
some reason the program did not include
the paper on the word semeion
which he had prepared for presentation.27
Duties at Wilberforce commanded
his attention so that he did not attend
the national philological meetings in
1914 and 1915 but went to St. Louis for
the sessions in 1916.28 In 1921 he
journeyed to England and represented the
American Philological Association
at the Classical Association meeting at
Cambridge University.
Thus over a period of almost forty years
Scarborough eagerly and even
aggressively pursued his efforts in the
field of classical philology. He, more-
over, was also active both as a writer
and a public speaker in the further-
ance of improved race relations. He had
performed some service in this re-
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 29 spect as a young man teaching in Georgia, but naturally he took more active leadership after joining the faculty of Wilberforce. Some of these efforts will be discussed later as attention is given to his leadership in the Repub- lican party of Ohio. He was an influential figure in securing the elimination of the legal segre- gation of the Negro in the schools of Ohio. The Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, whose home was at Wilberforce and who in May 1888 was to become a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected to the Ohio legislature from Greene County in 1886.29 He there became a joint sponsor of the Ely-Arnett bill, which outlawed public school segregation in Ohio.30 The passage of the bill was celebrated with various jubilee meetings, in- cluding one at Springfield, Ohio, February 28, when a crowd of 1,800 at- tended, and Scarborough was seated on the stage.31 Another one in which Scarborough also participated was held at the city hall in Columbus, March 16. The year 1888 marked the centennial of the institution of organized gov- ernment in the Northwest Territory with slavery excluded. Accordingly, a Centennial Jubilee of Freedom was held in Columbus, September 22. There, in the midst of a long oration, Bishop Arnett referred to Scarborough as "one of the most distinguished young men of the race."32 |
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30 OHIO HISTORY
During this period the noted novelist of
Louisiana Creole life, George
W. Cable, became increasingly concerned
to secure a constructive airing of
the Negro problem through articles in
leading American magazines.33 In
1888 he had asked Bishop B. T. Tanner to
recommend the best qualified
persons for such a task. As a result,
Scarborough contributed an article to
the Forum, March 1889, on
"The Future of the Negro." He contended that
the South feared "not condition,
but color; not loss of 'political integrity,'
but of political power" and that,
if the South did not produce a settlement of
these problems, the Negro would have to
leave the South.34 Scarborough also
contributed articles on the Negro
question to the New York Tribune and
other papers.
During these years Booker T. Washington,
with his program of industrial
education at Tuskegee Institute strongly
supported by leading philanthro-
pists, was receiving wide acclaim. Some
earnest advocates of Negro rights
believed that, by his emphasis on the
manual arts, Washington was really
aiding the cause of southern
conservatives. During 1890 various views of
the American Negro's prospects were
aired in another leading periodical,
the Arena. William C. P.
Breckinridge, congressman from Kentucky, de-
nounced outside interference in working
out a solution to the "Race Ques-
tion."35 Senator Wade
Hampton of South Carolina, in another article,36 even
indicated what he thought were the
merits of "revoking Negro citizenship,"
but deeming such a course impracticable,
he contemplated the desirability of
deporting the Negroes by voluntary
consent.37 Scarborough, writing in the
same magazine, contended that the Negro
problem was really the white
man's problem, for the white man, not
the Negro, asserted claims of race
supremacy. Scarborough held that the
solution for North and South, white
and black, was to unite on principles of
justice and humanity.38
During the next year he contributed
another article to the Arena on "The
Negro Question from the Negro's Point of
View." He maintained that the
white man did not understand the Negro
and that some white writers tried
to show the Negro to be incapable of
self-government or advanced education,
a viewpoint which Scarborough deemed
"preposterous."39 Some years later
he developed his views further in an
article in the Forum on "The Educated
Negro and Menial Pursuits." He
raised the question why the Negro should
be given "a pick instead of Greek
and Latin." His answer was that life
should be ennobled for the Negro as well
as for the white man, even in
menial positions, hence all avenues of
life's higher activities should be
opened to him.40 He
elaborated further on this viewpoint in an article in
Education in January 1900. Asserting that Booker T. Washington
served
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 31
as "a needed leader" in Negro
industrial education, he added, "But this
is not saying that because of his
success in this line all the race must run mad
over industrial education."41
Scarborough expressed similar views in a
review of Washington's The
Future of the American Negro (Boston, 1899) for the Annals of the Amer-
ican Academy of Political and Social
Science.42 Thus, at least a
distinct
difference in emphasis between the two
trends of Negro education was indi-
cated.43 Yet Scarborough and
Washington remained good friends, and their
differences may have been in part a
question of the best method of dealing
publicly with the race problem, when any
ideal solution was beyond the
range of immediate fulfilment.44
As we have seen, Scarborough's interests
in race matters were sometimes
closely intertwined with his linguistic
concerns. Another example of this
was when, on his first visit to Hampton
Institute in Virginia, he presented, at
a conference there, a paper on "The
Negro in Fiction as Portrayer and Por-
trayed." In this he took issue with
the way in which the Negro dialect was
being presented in the current books of
the time.45
In May 1891 he had unexpectedly become
the subject of a controversy
over race discrimination when, without
informing him, his Oberlin class-
mate, W. H. Tibbals, then a professor at
Park College, Missouri, presented
his name for membership in the Western
Authors and Artists Club in Kansas
City, Missouri. Tibbals pointed out
Scarborough's contributions to national
magazines and to the field of philology,
but after heated discussion, admis-
sion was denied to Scarborough. Some
believed that the incident was a
scheme to use a prominent Negro to
advertise a little-known organization,
but Tibbals wrote that he did it
"to test the Club."46
Negro leaders wished that their race
might receive proper attention at
various world expositions, including the
World's Columbian Exposition in
Chicago in 1893. Thereupon, a World's
Congress Committee was established,
and eventually an Ethnological Congress
was held in connection with the
exposition. Scarborough was active in
the deliberations which led to the
holding of the congress. Once again his
racial, philological, and ecclesias-
tical interests intertwined, as he was
asked to prepare a paper on the "Func-
tion and Future of Foreign Languages in
Africa," to show what would be
the effect of modern European languages
upon native African tongues. He
consulted competent authorities in the
preparation of the paper, which was
of interest to those concerned with the
missionary movement and which was
later published in the Methodist
Review.47
Scarborough had also participated in the
interfaith parley, the Parlia-
32 OHIO HISTORY
ment of Religions at the Columbian
Exposition.48 There he read a paper
prepared by Bishop Tanner, who was
absent because of illness, on "Afro-
American Journalism." The
exposition brought new opportunities to Scar-
borough, as he became acquainted with
Heli Chatelain, the French explorer,
and Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was then
seeking the publication of his
poems. He also had further contacts with
Frederick Douglass and was once
more impressed by "his massive
frame, leonic head, firm tread."
Following the same line of interwoven
interests in 1897, he contributed
an article, "Negro Folk-Lore and
Dialect," to the Arena.49 Dealing with
broader themes in the same journal in
1900, he contended that much of the
lawlessness among Negroes could be
explained by the attitude of whites
toward them. He elaborated:
When the American people, North and
South, come to realize the fact that
violence begets violence, and that no
people can be safe where law is ignored or
disregarded on the merest pretense, then
perhaps we may look for a better state
of things than can possibly exist under
present conditions.50
In 1901 Scarborough made a trip abroad,
and upon his return he hastened
to Ohio, for he was scheduled to attend
a meeting of the Afro-American
League of Ohio, of which he was
president. The organization had been estab-
lished to advance Negro rights. Just
then it was striving to prevent Jim Crow
railroad cars from entering Cincinnati
from Kentucky. The effort was suc-
cessful, with the assistance of legal
advisors, of whom Senator Joseph B.
Foraker was the most influential.
Scarborough contributed to the Manchester
Guardian, the London Times,
and various African publications,
including Izwi-La-bantu, "The Voice of the
People," a Cape Colony paper.
Scarborough joined William E. B. Du Bois,
the aggressive Negro leader, in
presenting arguments in the latter paper that
were at variance with the principles of
Booker T. Washington.
With the expansion of the United States
into Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and
the Philippines, he insisted that new
fields were being opened in those areas,
where, for example, the Negro might be
used as a teacher. He, moreover,
continued to contend that Negro
education should not be limited to industrial
training, for only through higher
education could the Negro achieve the
highest honor and respect.51
He gave talks during this period at
Hampton Institute on "The Negro as
a Factor in Business," "The
Negro's Duty to Himself," and "Co-operative
Essentials to Race Unity." He also
went to Boston to make an address on
"The Negro Scholar and His
Mission." In the summer of 1902 he spoke
34 OHIO HISTORY
before an educational mass meeting in
Columbus, Ohio, on the question,
"What Is the Colored Race Doing to
Advance Itself Educationally and What
Does It Contribute Yearly in a Financial
Way to the School Fund?" In
April 1904 he addressed a meeting in
Baltimore of the presidents and other
representatives of the agricultural and
mechanical schools devoted to Negro
education, speaking on "The Negro
College." In August he spoke before
the Negro Teachers of the United States,
meeting at Nashville. In May 1906
he went to Tuskegee Institute for the
twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of
the founding of the school.52 In
July he gave the commencement address at
Kentucky Normal and Industrial
Institute, and he also went to Detroit to
address the National Afro-American
Council on the subject, "How Shall We
Reach and Improve the Criminal
Classes?"53
In late July and in August he was in the
East, taking part in the program
of the Negro Young People's Christian
and Educational Congress in Wash-
ington, D.C., and speaking before the
Educational and Ministerial Chautau-
qua in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and at
"Mother Bethel" A.M.E. Church in
Philadelphia.
During this period Ray Stannard Baker
visited Wilberforce to gather ma-
terial for a series of articles to
appear in the American Magazine on the race
question in the United States.54 These
were later brought together in the
volume, Following the Color Line. Scarborough
reacted somewhat unfavor-
ably to the author's appraisals, writing
later in his autobiography:
Like many others who seek to know race
life from the inside in a few hours'
visitation, he failed to get fully into
the heart of things, generalizing from too
few particulars, and like many who
interview our people he learned only what
the few interviewed chose that he should
learn. When the Negro chooses he can
be as non-committal as any race.
Scarborough was persuaded to deliver the
commencement address at
Atlanta University, May 28, 1908,
speaking on "The Mission of the Negro
Graduate." As Atlanta University's
first graduate, he indulged in poignant
reminiscences. Then he discussed
"Education and Usefulness," "Acquire-
ments Expected," the "Mission
and Boundless Opportunity for Service," the
"Importance of Versatility,"
and the "Need for Toil and Sacrifice." His
closing remarks included the charge:
Go forth with a fixed determination that
you will make your service tell on
your day and generation. Act wisely,
cultivate tolerance and forebearance, while
not abating your manliness; make
friends, but do your duty regardless of ene-
mies; teach all duties and condemn all
vices.
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 35
In February 1909 he gave the oration in
Brooklyn, New York, at a celebra-
tion arranged by Negro citizens in honor
of the centennial of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln. Later in the year he
was the orator of the day at the un-
veiling of a monument to Paul Laurence
Dunbar in Woodlawn Cemetery,
Dayton, Ohio.
In March 1910 he went to Nashville for
the inauguration of President
George A. Gates at Fisk University.
After commencement of the next year
his wife and he made their second trip
abroad, this time to attend the First
Universal Races Congress at the
University of London during the last week
of July. The meetings were aimed at
fostering better race relations through-
out the world.55 With various
other delegates they sailed on the Carmania
and were delighted to meet on the boat
Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain's
biographer, and other notables. Leaving
the boat at the new port, Fishguard,
they journeyed to London through Wales
and again stopped at the palatial
St. Ermin's Hotel. At the meetings of
the congress sixty-two nationalities
were represented. Distinguished scholars
took part in emphasizing the unity
of the human race. A former president of
Haiti presided at the session at
which Scarborough addressed the congress
on "The Color Question in the
United States." Receptions in
London, luncheon and tea at Warwick Castle,
and a day at Cambridge University were
followed by a short trip to the
continent. Sightseeing in Paris and a
boat trip from Cologne to Strassburg
brought fearsome impressions of the
extent to which the war spirit was in
the air following the Algeciras
incident.
Returning to London, they found Victoria
Station deserted because of the
great strike. Visiting for some days in
the suburbs and in Manchester, at
last they sailed from Liverpool, once
again on the Carmania. At Halifax,
where recoaling became necessary, some
damage was done to the vessel in
entering the small harbor, but after
several days' delay, the ship proceeded
to New York.
Early in 1912 he contributed an article
to the African Times and Orient
Review. In July he went as a delegate to the Negro National
Educational
Conference in St. Paul by appointment of
Governor Judson Harmon. In
September he attended the congress held
in Philadelphia under the auspices
of the Emancipation Commission of
Pennsylvania. In December he went to
the inauguration of Dr. Stephen Newman
as president of Howard University
and was one of five university
presidents to deliver an address at the trustees'
reception.
In 1914 he lectured in Boston before a
Negro society, the St. Mark
Musical and Literary Union. In August of
that year he gave the address of
36 OHIO HISTORY
welcome to five hundred persons in
attendance at the Colored Women's Fed-
eration at Wilberforce. In September he
went to Passaic, New Jersey, to
lecture on "Education" at the
Bethel A.M.E. Church.
In 1915 he was a delegate from Ohio to a
meeting in Chicago celebrating
the Half Century Anniversary of Freedom.
During the summer he journeyed
to California, where he was given a
rousing reception by the Los Angeles
branch of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People.
In the summer of the next year,
following the death of William Hayes
Ward, the founding editor of the Independent,
Scarborough was asked by
Hamilton Holt, the editor, to join
Washington Gladden, Bliss Carman, and
others in tributes to Ward. Asked to
give an appreciation of Ward's devotion
to the Negro, Scarborough wrote in part:
Proscription, segregation, mob violence,
lynchings, denial of vote, all race
distinctions, all the thousand and one
indignities, persecutions and cruelties and
crimes against the negro wherever
practised, have found in him one who de-
nounced vigorously and unsparingly all
such as unlawful, unjust, unchristian
and inhuman. His work did not stop with
his strenuous endeavors to right the
wrongs done the negro, but he maintained
that the education of the race should
be of the highest type; . . . and
encouraged all its ambitions and aspirations as
a people.56
Late in the year, Scarborough went to
Durham, North Carolina, to a con-
ference on the "Progress of Negro
Education." Held at Professor W. G.
Pearson's Training School the conference
included in its program an address
by Scarborough on "What Should Be
the Standard of the University, College,
Normal School, Teacher Training and
Secondary Schools?"
As president of Wilberforce, Scarborough
encouraged friendly relations
between the races, so an athletic team
from the Chinese University at Hono-
lulu was invited to play at Wilberforce.
Although having a record of sixty-
five consecutive victories, the Chinese
team was defeated at Wilberforce.
Scarborough later recalled that
Wilberforce teams often played against
white teams "with the best of good
feeling." During this period he accepted
membership on a Provisional Jewish
Committee, concerned with stamping out
racial injustice and persecutions.
Almost on the eve of the entry of the
United States into World War I,
Scarborough journeyed to Washington,
D.C., where he participated in the
fiftieth anniversary celebration of the
founding of Howard University.57
In July 1917 he addressed the
Association of Teachers of Colored Schools
at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, on
"Negro Colleges and the War," and in
the fall he went as a delegate,
appointed by Governor James M. Cox of Ohio,
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 37
to the Negro National Educational
Congress in New York City. During the
first half of 1918, as a prominent Negro
leader, he attended a wide variety
of meetings, where he was sometimes the
speaker, in Washington, D.C.,
Philadelphia, and Columbus, and in
Kentucky at Frankfort, Lexington, and
Harrodsburg.
During the war Scarborough was not
inarticulate, as he felt that an injus-
tice had been done to numerous Negro
servicemen in the lamentable delay
in the delivery of officers' commissions
to them. He reacted vigorously also
when, upon demobilization, Negro
soldiers often experienced fresh evidences
of intolerance.
After the war came to an end, a repressive
spirit of nationalism and racism
expressed itself. In Ohio, some had
endeavored to put new restrictive "Black
Laws" on the statute books, and a
revived Ku Klux Klan incited hatred.58
Scarborough, as a noted representative
of Negro Americans, spoke out in
defense of them. He asserted, in part:
There is but one remedy for race riots,
and that is justice--a willingness to
accord to every man his rights--civil
and political.
The Negro is law-abiding and only
occasionally shows a retaliatory spirit....
Negroes are not rioters, but can be made
so. It is a heavy burden they carry.59
As will be discussed later, in the fall
of 1921 Scarborough went to
Europe to the Methodist ecumenical
conference. While in Great Britain
he told a reporter on one occasion:
We [Negroes], like other peoples, have
our radicals. We have those who believe
in force as a means of progress. I am
not among these. Interracial, like interna-
tional, questions, I think, must be
settled, if ever really settled, not by violence,
but by reason....
In the principle of Africa for Africans
I believe, but . . . I am convinced that
any progress toward realization of the
ideal of Africa for the Africans can be
achieved only slowly and by the use of
the weapons of mind and soul.
Later, as will be discussed
subsequently, Scarborough contributed to an
understanding of Negro problems as he
worked in the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture. Now, however, we
turn our attention to his long and
diversified efforts as a leader in one
of the largest denominations of Negroes
in the United States, the African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
In December 1882 the Sunday School Union
of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church was established, and
Scarborough became a contributing
editor to its publications. In addition
to the denominational paper the Chris-
tian Recorder, the A.M.E. Review was also established in order
to develop
30 OHIO HISTORY
literary expression in the denomination.
Scarborough contributed an article
on "The Greek of the New
Testament" to the first issue.60 Later, he was the
author of several articles--"On
Fatalism in Homer and Virgil" (previously
read at Yale University),61 "The
New College Fetich" (electives as a detri-
ment to the study of the classics),62
and "The Roman Cena"63--and a review
of Bishop Benjamin T. Tanner's Dispensations
in the History of the Church.64
During the 1890's with the establishment
of the Payne Theological Semi-
nary, the faculty of the school was used
to prepare the Sunday School
teachers' guide to the International
Sunday School lessons. Called the A.M.E.
Zion Quarterly and published at Nashville, Tennessee, it was a booklet
of
about thirty-six pages. At first the
work was done by President Samuel T.
Mitchell, Professor C. W. Prioleau, and
Scarborough, but Mitchell soon
turned his part of the work over to
Scarborough, as did Prioleau also when
he resigned from the faculty in 1895
(later becoming a United States Army
chaplain).
As an A.M.E. churchman, Scarborough,
along with Bishop Arnett and
others, was a delegate to the Third
Methodist Ecumenical Conference in
London in 1901.65 Negro transatlantic
travelers then seemed to be something
of a novelty. Sailing from New York,
they landed at Queenstown and pro-
ceeded to Liverpool. There they were assisted
by James Boyle, American
consul, who had been well known to
Scarborough and Arnett when he had
been secretary to President McKinley.
Going on to London, they were met
by Bishop Tanner's son, the artist Henry
Ossawa Tanner, who had come over
from Paris.66
Having decided upon a trip to Rome
before the conference opened, they
crossed the English channel to Dieppe.
Many passengers became seasick,
but Professor and Mrs. Scarborough stood
on the narrow deck passage and
faced the waves throughout the trip.
After a pleasant trip through Normandy
they stopped at the Grand Hotel in
Paris. The younger Tanner conducted
them on a sightseeing tour, and they
visited the Louvre, where one of his
paintings was on exhibition. They visited
Tanner's own studio in the Latin
Quarter. In view of his specilization in
Biblical scenes, Tanner had pur-
chased, at the death of the noted
Hungarian painter Mihaly Munkacsy, all
of his Oriental costumes.67
In Paris and throughout Italy no race
discrimination was noted in the
hotels, cafes, and concert halls.
Scarborough later commented, "Even the
American tourists there took only a
languid interest in our pigmentation, and
a young man from New Hampshire greeted
us in Switzerland as long lost
relatives so happy was he to hear the
sound of our English tongue." From
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 39
Paris the Scarboroughs with Bishop W. B.
Derrick traveled through southern
France and through the Mont Cenis tunnel
to Turin and Rome. Everywhere
Scarborough's interest in both the
classical and the Christian traditions was
excited by the many monuments of ancient
culture.
When they returned to London they found
that some Americans at their
hotel had demanded that the Negro guests
be ejected, but the manager
refused to comply.
At the ecumenical conference every phase
of the ecclesiastical and social
work of Methodism was discussed. One
morning the delegates heard the
startling news of the assassination of
President McKinley.
After the conference, sightseeing tours
of England and Scotland were fol-
lowed by a journey to Manchester and
Liverpool. Then they sailed for New
York on the Cunard liner Umbria.
Scarborough's relations with the African
Methodist Episcopal Church were
closely associated from 1908 to 1920
with his duties as president of a
church-affiliated university,
Wilberforce. Thus, in January 1912, he jour-
neyed to Atlanta to pay his respects at
the funeral of his lifelong friend
Bishop Wesley J. Gaines. Several years
later he returned to Atlanta for the
inauguration of Dr. Philip M. Watters as
president of Gammon Theological
Seminary. His duties involved attendance
at general conferences of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church,
including that held in Philadelphia
in 1916.
In December 1919 he participated in a
meeting of the Interchurch World
Movement in New York City. In 1921 he
was one of a group of Negro Amer-
icans to go to Europe to attend another
Methodist ecumenical conference,
meeting in September. He, however, went
in advance of the rest of the party,
for he was to represent the American
Philological Association at a meeting
in Cambridge, England. At the last
minute Mrs. Scarborough could not ac-
company him, owing to illness in her
family. He sailed July 16, on the
Carmania, on which his wife and he had sailed in 1911. The voyage
was
rather lonely for him this time, but he
found companionship with another
lonely individual, a young Japanese
chemist en route to enter business in
Bombay. Having arrived at Liverpool on
July 23, he took a train for Edin-
burgh. He spent a day in the lovely
highland lake country.
At the end of July he was in London,
stopping at the Hotel Cecil. Then he
went to the meeting at Cambridge, that
of Anglo-American classicists. A wide
variety of scholarly papers, concerts, a
visit to Ely Cathedral, and a number
of receptions occupied his time for some
days. He then revisited Oxford and
went on to Stratford-on-Avon. On August
18, with other delegates, he went to
40 OHIO HISTORY
Southampton and across the channel to
Cherbourg, where he met those who
were arriving to attend the Methodist
conference. Going on to Paris, they
visited Versailles, made a tour of the
war zone, and saw the war-damaged
Rheims Cathedral. Going by train to
Rome, they later visited Florence,
Venice, and Milan. Returning by way of
Switzerland to Paris, they went on
to Brussels and the Waterloo battlefield.
Reaching Ostend, they crossed the
channel and went on to London by rail.
There, on September 6, the ecumenical
conference opened in City Roads
Chapel, with later general sessions in
the new Central Hall. The emphasis
was on brotherhood. One Sunday Scarborough
addressed two church meet-
ings.
After the conference he visited friends
in Paris and returned to London
before sailing from Southampton, October
21, on the Adriatic. The voyage
was without noteworthy incident, and he
proceeded then by rail to his home
in Ohio.
We now turn to a consideration of
Scarborough's influential career in the
field of politics. As a young man he had
been a delegate to the Republican
state convention at Atlanta. As he
settled down at Wilberforce to become an
influential Negro leader, he soon took
an important part in providing guid-
ance for the Negro constituency in the
Republican party in Ohio. In 1879
he had actively sought the gubernatorial
nomination for Alphonso Taft of
Cincinnati when the position had gone to
Charles Foster of Fostoria, who was
elected.68 During this period much
dissatisfaction existed among the Negroes
of Ohio with the attitude of the
Republican party toward Negro rights.69 Scar-
borough made an address on "Our
Political Status" at an interstate Negro
convention in Pittsburgh, decrying the
way in which Negro rights were being
trampled under foot.70 Recalling
the Civil War heroism of the Negro at Fort
Wagner, Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson,
and Fort Pillow, he appealed for
full civil and political rights for the
colored man. He regretted the supine
attitude of conciliation on the part of
the Republican party, but saw no hope
for the Negro in supporting independents
or the Democrats. He called upon
his race to present "a united
front" and urged the presentation of a compre-
hensive petition of its grievances to
the Republican national convention at
Chicago in June 1884. He denounced
prejudice that could not rise above the
"infamous color-line" and
advocated mixed churches and integration in
other phases of American life.71
At the Republican national convention of
1884 the Negro's strength was
recognized by the choice of John R.
Lynch, a prominent Mississippi Negro,
over Senator Powell Clayton, a white man
from Arkansas, as temporary
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 41
chairman.72 In the
convention Scarborough believed that Foraker was
thoroughly loyal to Senator John
Sherman. Scarborough had written an arti-
cle for the Chicago Tribune favoring
Sherman, but that paper refused to
print it, for it deemed "Sherman
the very man whose nomination would place
the Republicans on the defensive and
keep them there until the election is
over." Whitelaw Reid apparently
held similar views, for he wrote Scar-
borough after Cleveland's election in
1884 that he considered that Blaine
was "our best candidate and had no
doubt that he would have been elected
by a handsome majority, but for the
Burchard Incident. . . . I should have
been perfectly satisfied, however, with
Sherman as a candidate, but would
have expected a harder contest for him
in New York than we had with
Blaine." In this campaign
Scarborough used his utmost efforts for Blaine.73
During the gubernatorial campaign of
1885 in Ohio, the Republicans de-
manded a "free ballot and fair
count." Foraker, again running for the gov-
ernorship (after his defeat of 1883),
spoke in June at Wilberforce, denying
charges that he was unfavorable to the
Negro. Protesting against limiting
the Negro to utilitarian activities, he
asserted that "nothing was so well cal-
culated to strengthen the mind and give
one the power of analysis as a
study of ancient languages."
Scarborough believed that Foraker's election
in 1885 "was a fortunate event for
the race," in spite of the favorable atti-
tude toward the Negro of George Hoadly,
the Democratic nominee.74
On February 13, 1888, Scarborough was
the only Negro among twelve
speakers who responded to toasts at the
first Lincoln Day banquet of the
Ohio Republican League, an occasion
arranged to help create political en-
thusiasm in the state.75 Scarborough
responded to the toast, "Why I am a
Republican." He declared that
among other reasons he adhered to the party
of Lincoln "because to make
political alliance elsewhere would be to prove
myself the veriest ingrate that ever
trod this green earth, the meanest pol-
troon that ever exhibited his moral
weakness to the gaze of the public--
deserved to be hissed and spit upon by
those I had deserted, and treated like
a fawning cur."76
Scarborough's success on this occasion
led to his going to Chicago to
work for the nomination of John Sherman
for the presidency. Scarborough
later asserted that he believed that
Foraker "stood by Sherman loyally and
faithfully as long as possible; and
turned to Harrison only when the use-
lessness of continued support of Ohio's
first choice was plainly evident."
Scarborough felt that his own course
was much the same. Earlier he had
always found Sherman "approachable
and sympathetic," but after the con-
vention he "noticed a perceptible
coolness in his friendship."
42 OHIO HISTORY
Following the nomination of Harrison, it
was widely believed that the
Negro vote might be decisive in the
campaign. At first it was thought that a
Negro convention would best serve to
rally the Negro voters, but finally an
"Address to Colored Citizens,"
signed by well-known Negro citizens was
deemed the best way to influence the
largest number of voters. In response
to a letter from Frederick Douglass,
dated Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D.C.,
September 8, 1888, Scarborough visited
Douglass, and the two prepared a
five-column appeal to Negro voters,
which was signed by prominent Negro
leaders and was widely distributed
before the election.77 Scarborough exerted
strong personal efforts during the
campaign, and after the election received
a personal letter of thanks from
Harrison.78
At the second annual banquet of the Ohio
Republican League in Columbus,
February 12, 1889, Scarborough
substituted for the distinguished John H.
Langston, who had been scheduled to
respond to the toast, "The Colored
Man in Politics."79
Scarborough's political activities had
brought him into close touch with
political leaders of both parties in
Ohio, among them William McKinley,
Benjamin Butterworth, Charles H.
Grosvenor, Joseph Warren Keifer, Asa
Bushnell, Charles Kurtz, and Judson
Harmon. He had been especially close
to Governor Foraker, who believed that
his own defeat for a third term was
due to the fact that "he had gone
to the well once too often." To some extent
Scarborough felt that he had gone down
politically with Foraker's defeat,
and he began to give more time to his
literary work and to the advancement
of Wilberforce.
Yet he had developed a growing ambition
and, to some extent, a desire
for a change and looked to Haiti with
its language and folklore as a field
for the philologist. His Republican
connections prompted him to seek the
post of minister to Haiti, following
Frederick Douglass' retirement in 1891.80
Foraker dispatched highly complimentary
letters of endorsement to Presi-
dent Harrison and to Secretary of State
James G. Blaine. To the latter, he
wrote in part: "Professor
Scarborough is one of the best representatives of
his race in point of ability and
character that I have ever known." Scar-
borough personally called on the new
postmaster general, John Wanamaker
of Philadelphia, who, it was later
revealed, was supporting John S. Dunham,
a Negro of his home city, for the
position. Wanamaker endeavored to dis-
courage Scarborough in his quest by
voicing his belief that the coveted ap-
pointment would offer far less
opportunity than he had as an educator of
youth, a view similar to that taken by
some others. There were, at any rate,
geographical as well as political
impediments to Scarborough's appointment.
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 43
At first, Blaine, who wanted a white man
in the position, objected to Dunham
as too young and too inexperienced, but
eventually he came to believe that
the appointment would save Harrison
"the annoyance of a half hundred
colored men" in an enraged quarrel
for the place.81 Dunham received the
position. Charles Foster, now secretary
of the treasury, suggested that Scar-
borough take the post of Liberian
minister or consul general in Santo
Domingo. Scarborough thought these would
not contribute to his literary
advancement, as the mission to Haiti
would have done, and he declined to
be considered for them.
In the summer of 1892 James S. Clarkson
of the Republican national
committee wrote to Scarborough
indicating that he was recommending that
he be employed to make ten campaign
speeches. Scarborough later asserted
that he had charged $700 for these
oratorical efforts.82
In 1897 Scarborough once again sought
the Haitian post in the diplomatic
service. In February he went to a
Lincoln Day banquet at Zanesville that
was addressed by Booker T. Washington.
After it a pilgrimage was made to
call on President-elect McKinley. Washington
took the opportunity to urge
the appointment of Scarborough to Haiti.
Afterwards, the president-elect
detained Scarborough for a private talk,
emphasizing his desire to see Mark
Hanna chosen to Sherman's senatorial
seat. But Scarborough did not re-
ceive the Haitian post.83
In the meantime he had taken some part
in Republican politics, but was
distressed by the bitter factionalism in
the party. He manifested great inter-
est in advancing the political fortunes
of Warren C. Harding, who was
elected state senator in 1899, and he
campaigned actively for Myron T.
Herrick, who was elected governor in
1903.
In February 1904 he attended the annual
Republican Lincoln Day banquet
at the Hotel Hollenden in Cleveland.
This being a presidential year, politics
demanded his attention, as his services
were again sought by Republican
leaders. By request, in October he sent
out "An Appeal to the Colored
Voters," in a circular in which he
asserted that the "election was to be by
all odds the most important since the Rebellion."
There had been much ado
North and South over the fact that
President Roosevelt had entertained
Booker T. Washington at dinner in the
White House, October 16, 1901.84
Scarborough now called on his fellow
Negroes to vote for Roosevelt, "who
had the courage to recognize merit and
manhood irrespective of class or con-
dition," and to vote against such
men as Congressman J. Thomas Heflin of
Alabama, who allegedly had declared that
Roosevelt "should have had a
bomb thrown under his table."
44 OHIO HISTORY
In 1905 he campaigned actively for the
reelection of the Republican gov-
ernor, Myron T. Herrick. He told the
colored voters that the issue was "not
a local one, not merely a state one, but
to all intents and purpose, national
in its scope." But Herrick was
defeated by the Democratic candidate, John
M. Pattison.85
In January 1907 Scarborough attended a
joint meeting of philologists and
archaeologists in Washington, D.C. At
this time members of the association
were received by President Roosevelt in
the Blue Room of the White House.
Scarborough later recalled:
I was midway in the line. When President
Roosevelt saw me his eyes twinkled.
He showed both surprise and delight at
my presence in such a body. He greeted
me heartily and asked me to remain,
saying he desired to speak with me when
the others had withdrawn. I did so and
he asked me to call the following day as
he had something of importance to say to
me in regard to the position he had
in mind.
Scarborough later learned that the
president had been so impressed by the
Ohioan's presence in such a
distinguished body that he sensed the possibility
of appointing him to a high place so as
to mollify Negro opinion.
Scarborough, like other Negroes, had
recently been most resentful of
Roosevelt's action in dismissing
"without honor" 270 Negro infantrymen
because of the so-called Brownsville
affair in Texas. But Scarborough did
not have the further interview with the
president, for the next morning he
received a letter from Roosevelt's
secretary saying that the president would
not take up the matter with Scarborough
at least for the time being. Scar-
borough afterwards believed that another
Ohioan had indicated that Scar-
borough was an "out and out Foraker
man," a fact which would have made
him persona non grata at the
time, for Roosevelt and Foraker had contended
violently over the Brownsville affair.86
Scarborough later asserted that his
relations with Foraker were closer than
with any other public man of the
time, except Warren C. Harding, and many
letters were exchanged between
them on political matters.
Scarborough had been consulted on
numerous occasions regarding the
appointment of Negroes by governors of
Ohio to positions of responsibility.
Following the death of Governor John M.
Pattison in 1905, Lieutenant
Governor Andrew L. Harris succeeded to
the post of chief executive. At one
time, Harris sent for Scarborough to
help him select a Democrat for the
state board at Wilberforce University.
Scarborough suggested Common
Pleas Judge Madison W. Beacom of
Cleveland, an Oberlin graduate of the
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 45
class of 1879. Harris asked Scarborough
to go to Cleveland to see whether
Beacom would accept, and the result was
Beacom's appointment.87
In general in Ohio the Republican party
was more closely associated with
the prohibition movement than the
Democrats, so in the spring of 1908,
both as a churchman and a Republican,
Scarborough was glad to issue an
appeal to Negro citizens of Ohio to vote
against home rule on the liquor
question--desired by the saloon
interests--and in favor of statewide prohi-
bition. Similarly, in 1916, when Myron
T. Herrick, former Republican
governor, sought a senate seat from
Ohio, Scarborough issued a special
appeal to the Negro voters in his
behalf.
In the meantime, in 1908, when the
Republican national campaign opened
in Youngstown, Ohio, Scarborough
accepted an invitation to be present.
There he found that the program listed
him not only as president of Wilber-
force but with "Reverend"
before his name. He was scheduled to give the
invocation and did so, even though he
was a layman. Subsequently, he
exerted his best efforts to
advance the presidential candidacy of Taft in
that year.
Scarborough was especially active in
Republican politics during 1920.
At the Republican national convention in
Chicago in June, Frank B. Willis
had made the speech which had placed
Harding in nomination. After
Harding's selection as the party
standard-bearer, Willis became a candidate
for the senatorial seat occupied by
Harding, but Walter F. Brown of Toledo
and R. M. Wanamaker also entered the
contest.88 Brown was a former "Bull
Mooser" of 1912 and did not have
the support of various leaders of the
Republican machine. Maurice Maschke of
Cleveland wrote Scarborough in
July, urging him to work in Clark,
Creene, and Madison counties "and a
little in Highland," and offering
him fifty dollars a week and traveling ex-
penses until the close of the primaries
in August.89 Willis won the contest.
Scarborough had worked so effectively
that Willis wrote him, "You and
your friends certainly rallied to my
support in great shape."90
In the subsequent race between Willis
and the Democratic candidate,
W. A. Julian of Cincinnati, Scarborough
again worked vigorously for Willis,
and once again received profuse thanks
when Willis won the election.91 Scar-
borough had campaigned for the
Republican ticket as a whole and received
a letter of appreciation from Harry S.
New of the Republican national com-
mittee after the close of the
campaign.92
Because of his efforts in the campaign
and in view of his loss of the
position of president of Wilberforce,
Scarborough eagerly sought a govern-
ment appointment in Washington. He was
summoned to Washington to report
46 OHIO HISTORY
to the veterans' bureau, but an
appointment in that bureau did not material-
ize. Apparently at that time the
appointment of a Negro to a responsible
position was fraught with difficulties.
Finally, a position at $250 a month
as assistant in farm studies in the
department of agriculture was secured
beginning November 1, 1921, and was
continued on a three-months basis,
the appointment being renewed at the end
of the period.93 His task was to
assist in providing information which,
published in bulletins, might aid
Negro farmers. He expressed to President
Harding a wish to broaden the
work of the bureau of agricultural
economics among Negro farmers of the
country, and the president gave him
encouragement.94
Henry C. Wallace, secretary of
agriculture, was interested in having Scar-
borough's office give a few
scientifically trained Negroes positions to enable
them to assist the Negro farmer of the
South and to gather scientific data
touching Negro farm life and problems.
Scarborough submitted a plan for
carrying out this intention.95 In
executing the proposal, Scarborough per-
sonally went among the Negro farmers of
rich Southampton County, Vir-
ginia, to aid them to secure help from
the Federal Farm Loan Bank. He
now became an authority on the Negro
farmer in the South. He was the
author of a brief United States
Department of Agriculture monograph, Ten-
ancy and Ownership Among Negro
Farmers in Southampton, Virginia.96
In a practical way he was instrumental
in securing the admission of Negro
farmers to the Farm Loan Association,
from which they had previously been
excluded. He also contributed an article
to Current History on "The Negro
Farmer in the South," acknowledging
the discouraging situation for the
Negro there but declining to accept
Negro migration from the South as an
answer to the problem. He asserted:
The more I visit the congested parts of
cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Phila-
delphia, and New York, the more I am
convinced that the best place for the
average Negro, if he is a farmer and if
he is in any degree successful as such, is
in the farming districts of the
south....
The Virginia Negro farmers may be said
to belong to a thrifty group. Virtu-
ally all are members of a church and of
one or another of the many fraternal
groups among them; and seldom are any of
these affiliations neglected. Most of
the Negroes have automobiles and many
own victrolas. So the home conditions
improve.97
Shortly after his death, his article on
"The Negro Farmer's Progress
in Virginia" was published in Current
History. It presented numerous in-
stances and statistics to show their
increased wealth, cooperative marketing,
and educational progress, with the
conclusion: "These are most encouraging
WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH 47
examples to set before the rising
generation, showing the possibilities resid.
ing in farm ownership and the worth of
farm life generally."98
Scarborough came to feel that the
failure of officials in Washington to
move further ahead in service to Negro
farmers was due to a fear of inte-
gration problems in Washington
government offices. Bills in which he was
interested that were intended to create
a Negro industrial commission, more-
over, were never reported out of
congressional committee.
During his work in Washington he was a
regular attendant at Sunday
church services, and occasionally he
left the city to make an address at
Tuskegee, Baltimore, or New York. At a
meeting of the Republican State
Voters' Association, on the occasion of
the "Ohio Night" ceremonies at the
Willard Hotel, he was directed to take
the freight elevator but refused to
do so. Later, Republican leaders assured
him that a change of location
was being made for other meetings and
that there would be "no repetition
of the unfortunate occurrence."
Needing rest, he took a month's vacation
at his Ohio home in July
1923. The death of Harding during the
next month was a great loss to
Scarborough, who recalled how he had
always been warmly welcomed at
the White House. On one occasion he had
been ushered into the cabinet room,
where a few members were lingering after
a meeting. Harding greeted him
cordially, threw his arm over the
visitor's shoulder, and turning to the mem-
bers, said: "I want to introduce
Dr. Scarborough to you. Here is a 100 per
cent American."
Scarborough was present when the Harding
funeral train reached Wash-
ington from San Francisco and paid a
condolence call at the White House.
Not long afterwards he paid his respects
to the new president, Calvin
Coolidge. Harding had definitely been
Scarborough's patron, and although
Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty,
Register of the Treasury H. H.
Speelman, and Senators Fess and Willis
were interested in his continued
government service, his work in the
capital ended, December 31, 1923.99
Returning to Ohio in December, he
gradually adjusted himself to
retirement at home, although he was
discouraged about the Wilberforce
situation. Governor Vic Donahey tried to
console him, writing in July 1924:
"I hope that things at Wilberforce
are not as bad as you think. I have
always tried to do what I could to aid
the institution."100 By this time the
campaign of 1924 was getting under way
and Scarborough worked ener-
getically for Coolidge's success.
In 1925 he was among those protesting
against the exhibition of the
movie The Birth of a Nation, which
many deemed an incitement to racial
48 OHIO HISTORY
prejudices, and Governor Vic Donahey of
Ohio wrote him, declaring his
determination to prevent the showing of
the picture.
In June of that year he went to Oberlin
to the fiftieth anniversary of
the graduation of his class (1875).
There, President Henry C. King gave
the baccalaureate sermon on
"Patience" and Newton D. Baker delivered the
commencement address, "Education in
Action." Scarborough enjoyed the
alumni dinner in Warner Gymnasium, and
the festive moments and the
joyous renewal of old friendships.
In November he went East to make his
annual address before the
Y.M.C.A., speaking on "Social Near
East Problems." But he realized that
his vigorous days were over, and now he
was in a time of life for reminiscing.
As he had grown older he grew more
conservative, more tolerant, less
aggressive. He believed that the Negro
had made "unparalleled progress"
in every line of endeavor, but that the
Negro churches had not kept pace with
the advance in home life and educational
efforts. He explained: "There has
grown to be too much of church politics,
too much greed on the part of
some high in its offices--a greed for
office, power, and money which has
dragged in the mire the robes of some in
ecclesiastical positions."
He had been associated with the
Wilberforce community for more than
forty years. There, in 1890, his wife
and he had occupied a new home,
named Tretton Place after the residence
of the Scarborough family in
Anthony Trollope's novel. This was their
home during the rest of their life
together. At times vicissitudes of
health had overtaken him. Under the
strain of efforts to secure
philanthropic aid for Wilberforce he had suffered
a temporary nervous breakdown in 1910.
On New Year's night 1915 he
had slipped on the ice on the university
campus, breaking two ribs and
fracturing a third. This necessitated
confinement to his home for many
weeks followed by a period of
recuperation in Florida.
He had vivid memories of inspiring
incidents over many years in the
classroom and of happy social occasions
with students and colleagues. In
his autobiography he recalled
the many pleasant hours when they were
gathered under our roof or on our
lawn for an evening or afternoon of
jollity, and I can see in memory the long
line passing at ten o'clock down the
stairway and through the long hall, a happy
throng, grasping our hands with an
appreciative word as they said goodbye--
each made happier by bearing away from
the large basket at the door an apple,
an orange, a huge popcorn ball as they
left us, an uplifted company to live on
higher planes and eagerly look forward
to another gathering.
Among all of his friends he felt that
Professor Richard T. Greener
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had had the most salutary influence upon his career. He had known inti- mately the leading Negro leaders of his generation. Among them were Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and William E. B. Du Bois. After the death of Douglass at his home in Anacostia, February 20, 1895, Scarborough had gone there to serve as an honorary pallbearer. Booker T. Washington, as we have seen, had crossed his path many times and had at one time been his house guest at Wilberforce. In the small Wilberforce community he had known Du Bois well, for the latter had taught Latin and Greek there from 1894 to 1896.101 Scarborough never used tobacco and was a strong advocate of temper- ance, his glass always being turned down at banquets. He did not play cards and was never known to have danced, even in his younger days. Croquet games on the lawn, checkers as an indoor pastime, the companion- ship of his books, pleasant occasions with friends, travel, and the inspira- tion of music--these brought him relaxation. In June 1926 he attended commencement at Wilberforce for the first time in the six years since his retirement. He was persuaded to sit upon the stage, and thus witnessed the annual exercises for the last time. Now he gradually grew thin and became increasingly languorous. Rheumatic trouble crept upon him, and his enthusiasm for life was on the wane. A few days after the commencement exercises, he attempted to remove a broken limb from a cherry tree but had a fainting spell. He recovered, but a few |
50 OHIO HISTORY
days thereafter when a severe wind
leveled a giant oak on his lawn, he
faintly smiled as he observed,
"That is myself." On another occasion, in
his restlessness he insisted on working
on a grape arbor which had been
damaged by the storm. The next day an
increasing lameness and an attack
of nausea necessitated the calling of a
physician. On August 5 he was com-
pelled to go to bed for rest. Only once
thereafter did he leave the room,
then to creep painfully into the library
to take a last look at his books.
The nausea rapidly increased, so that he
was unable to take nourish-
ment or medicine. At first he was
rebellious, but then he manifested an
acceptance of the inevitable. The
constant solicitude of his wife, the visits
and prayers of his pastor, and the
faithfulness of friends and of his physician
were evident. At sunset on the evening
of September 9, he peacefully passed
away.102
Scarborough had preferred very simple
funeral services, but an ade-
quate recognition of his accomplishments
seemed necessary to his friends
and the university authorities. On the
morning of September 12 the casket
was taken to Galloway Hall, so that the
body might lie in state before the
platform on which he had appeared on
countless occasions. At the head and
foot of the casket stood a university
cadet. The services were held at one-
thirty in the afternoon. Dean George F.
Woodson of Payne Seminary
preached the sermon, emphasizing
Scarborough's religious faith. Bishop
Reverdy Ransom of the A.M.E. Church
delivered the eulogy. Dr. W. A.
Anderson, one of his early pupils and a
member of the university board of
trustees, read the biographical sketch
and a tribute prepared by Dr. W. A.
Galloway, Scarborough's co-worker for
many years on the state board of
trustees and his personal physician and
friend. Miss Hallie Q. Brown,
long-time neighbor and friend, read two
of his favorite poems, "Emanicipa-
tion" and "The Upper
Room." The choir then sang his favorite hymns, "In
the Cross of Christ I Glory" and
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and "There Is
No Death," was sung as a solo.
Numerous were the tributes of love and
appreciation that were received
at this time emphasizing his sterling
and gracious personal character. In
the field of leadership he had done much
for the Negro, for the Republican
party, and for Wilberforce, and in the
field of scholarship, the historian
of Wilberforce tells us, he was
"the greatest scholar to be connected with
the institution for nearly half a
century."103
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WILLIAM SANDERS SCARBOROUGH |
SCHOLARSHIP, THE NEGRO, RELIGION, AND POLITICS by FRANCIS P. WEISENBURGER During the years in which William Sanders Scarborough was professor and then president at Wilberforce University, his scholarly activities in the field of linguistics, his work and writings in the field of race relations, his con- tributions in the areas of religious journalism and church organization, and his varied public services were significant.* Each of these demands some consideration. As was previously pointed out, his textbook in elementary Greek was pub- lished in 1881. In July of the next year, the American Philological Associa- tion, meeting at Harvard University, elected him to membership.1 The death of his father in October 1883 and his own serious illness, as well as a lack of library facilities, impeded his research activities, but he was enabled to ob- NOTES ARE ON PAGES 85-88 |