For Labor, Race, and Liberty: George Edwin Taylor, His Historic Run for the White House, and the Making of Independent Black Politics

278 Pages·2011·2.01 MB·English

by  Bruce L. Mouser

For Labor, Race, and Liberty

For Labor, Race,
and Liberty
George Edwin Taylor,
His Historic Run for the White House, and
the Making of Independent Black Politics
Bruce L. Mouser
The University of Wisconsin Press
Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part,
through support from
the AF   C  L S
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
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Copyright © 2011 by Bruce Mouser
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Printed in the United States ofAmerica
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mouser, Bruce L.
For labor, race, and liberty: George Edwin Taylor, his historic run for
the White House, and the making ofindependent black politics / Bruce L. Mouser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-24914-4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-299-24913-7 (e-book)
1. African American presidential candidates—Biography.
2. African American politicians—19th century—Biography.
3. African American politicians—20th century—Biography.
I. Title.
E185.97.T39M68 2011
324.2092—dc22
[B]
2010011577
Contents
List ofIllustrations vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
List ofAbbreviations xxiii
Introduction 3
1 From Orphaned Black to Printer’s Devil: Taylor’s
Early Years in “God’s Country” 14
2 Labor Agitator, Newspaper Editor, and Political Novice:
Schools of Hard Knocks 28
3 Emergence of a Black Activist: Succeeding in
the African American World 57
4 Taylor as the National Democrat: Black and Equal 86
5 Taylor’s Campaign to Become President: A Duty to
Himself and His Race 107
6 Escape to a Warm Place: Retreat and Reconstruct 135
Conclusion 146
Appendix A: Taylor’s Interview with the Sunafter
the 1904 Election 155
Appendix B: Election Data for Nine Political Parties and
Candidates in the 1904 Election 159
Appendix C: Chart ofGeorge Edwin Taylor’s Life 161
Notes 167
Bibliography 219
Index 241
v

Illustrations
Bird’s-eye view of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1887 9
Nathan Smith 17
Marcus “Brick”Pomeroy 20
“Buffalo Bill”Cody and “White Beaver”Powell 26
John Q. Adams 61
T. Thomas Fortune 65
William Calvin Chase 69
Hon. Frederick Douglass 72
Booker T. Washington 79
William T. Scott 97
George Edwin Taylor, 1904 121
George Edwin Taylor, 1904 presidential poster 126
W. E. B. Du Bois 133
vii

Preface
Frequently when I was introduced as one ofthe Presidential candidates,
I saw people pass the wink around. They didn’t think I saw it, but I want
to tell you the colored man is beginning to see a lot of things that the
white folks do not give him credit for seeing. He’s beginning to see that
he has got to take care ofhis own interests, and what’s more, that he has
the power to do it.
George Edwin Taylor,
interview given to the Sun(New York City),
20 November 1904
In 1904 an African American who was a longtime resident of Wisconsin and
Iowa ran for president of the United States. How this came to be is the subject
of the present work. George Edwin Taylor’s birth in the slaveholding state of
Arkansas in 1857 occurred only five years after the publication of Harriet
Beecher Stowe’sUncle Tom’s Cabin, which rallied the nation against an oppres-
sive and dehumanizing slaveholding system and propelled the nation toward a
civil war that liberated and enfranchised the slaves. Taylor’s political career
ended forty-eight years later, in grim contrast, between the publication of
Thomas Dixon’s provocative The Leopard’s Spots (1902) and The Clansman
(1905), both of which portrayed African Americans as belonging to a physically
aggressive and biologically inferior branch of the human race. These novels
profoundly shaped America’s attitudes about race and the character of African
Americans, and Taylor’s life and interactions with white Americans were influ-
enced greatly by them as well. During that half century of change America’s
black slave population traveled from a time of bondage to one in which the
federal government guaranteed equal voting rights and a degree of integration,
then to a phase of stagnation, slippage, and the reemergence of white domi-
nance in America’s South, and finally—in full circle—to a time of disenfran-
chisement and Jim Crow–inspired racial and physical separation.
ix