Washington correspondent of The Chicago (Ill.) Conservator, The North Carolina Republican. The Enterprise, of Fayetteville, N. C., The New York Freeman, The Reed City Clarion, (white), The Detroit Plaindealer, The Christian Index, and The Cherokee Advocate; the latter being published in English and Cherokee, by the Cherokee nation.
Mr. Bruce may be called, with due propriety, the prince of Afro-American correspondents. He is not only sought for by our race journals as a news-gatherer, but by those of the Anglo-Saxon, also. He has, at times, contributed special articles to The New York Herald, Times, World, Mail and Express.
Not only has he been a correspondent for other journals, but has actually established several journals himself, whose editorial management was brilliant. He published The Argus, at Washington City in 1879, with C. M, Otey, A. M., editor, which he published nearly two years, when it was turned over to a stock-company, and finally died. The Sunday Item, established in 1880 by J. E. Bruce and S. S. Lacy, was the first Sunday paper ever published by Afro-Americans, and was fairly successful as a newspaper venture. It, like many other of our journals, lacked capital to put it properly on its feet, and hence had to "die the death of the righteous."
The Washington Grit was founded by Mr. Bruce, in 1884, as a campaign sheet, he being the editor and proprietor. This sheet, like all others established by him, was a staunch Republican paper, not hesitating to speak out in advocacy of Republican principles. It was quietly gathered unto its projector's arms in the latter part of 1884, conscious of the fact that it had done all it could for the election of the Republican ticket. He also established, at Baltimore, The Commonwealth, which survived six months; but the principles for which it contended triumphed, viz., the obliteration of
