which had been granted by the government for the inventions of Negroes. Murray spoke briefly of what the Negroes were doing and thinking and, in conclusion, gave to the effort for federal aid his unqualified endorsement.
Measures proposed by George H. White, a representative from North Carolina to the Fifty-fifth and Fifty-sixth Congresses, tended mainly to promote the social welfare of his race.[1] One of these was a resolution for the consideration of a bill to provide a home for aged and infirm Negroes. His other measures of this sort were bills to pay the wages of the Negro Civil War-time employees withheld by the War Department, to incorporate a "National Colored American Association," and to provide for the exhibit of the educational and industrial progress of the Negro at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Few measures of this type could become law.
Various Interests
Many problems miscellaneous in character interested the Negro Congressmen. Indeed, early in the Forty-second Congress, Josiah T. Walls[2] supported a measure which proposed to appropriate $3,000,000 to aid the centennial celebration and international exhibition of 1876. Sometime later, moreover, he urged the recognition of the belligerent rights of Cuba. In the Forty-fourth Congress, John A. Hyman, of North Carolina, offered a measure to provide relief for the Cherokee Indians, who had returned to the "Nation West"[3] while the measures of his colleague, Jere Haralson[4] of Alabama, comprised such objects as the amendment of the revised statutes of the United States, the relief of the Medical College of Alabama, and the payment of war claims. During his three terms in Congress, John B. Lynch maintained interest in a wide range of subjects.
- ↑ Congressional Record, 56th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 166, 372, 594, 791; 2nd Session, p. 188; 55th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 3153.
- ↑ Ibid., 43rd Congress, 1st Session, App., p. 250; pp. 27, 206. Congressional Globe, 42nd Congress, 1st Session, pp. 198, 178.
- ↑ Congressional Record, 44th Congress, 1st Session, p. 3340.
- ↑ Ibid., 44th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 771, 2714, 2791.
