Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/241

Rh stole $100,000 and resigned. His successor stole $55,000 and a treasury agent wrote: “Another receiver would probably follow in the footsteps of the two. You will not be surprised if I recommend him being retained in preference to another appointment." From 1830 to 1860 southern men in federal offices alone embezzled more than a million dollars--a far greater sum then than now.

There might have been less stealing in the South during Reconstruction without Negro suffrage but it is certainly highly instructive to remember that the mark of the thief which dragged its slime across nearly every great Northern State and almost up to the presidential chair could not certainly in those cases be charged against the vote of black men. This was the day when a national Secretary of War was caught stealing, a vice president presumably took bribes, a private secretary of the president, a chief clerk of the Treasury, and eighty-six government officials stole millions in the Whiskey frauds; while the "Credit Mobilier" filched millions and bribed the government to an extent never fully revealed; not to mention less distinguished thieves like Tweed.

Is it surprising that in such an atmosphere a new race learning the a-b-c of government should have become the tools of thieves? And when they did, was the stealing their fault or was it justly