The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol.5, page 648, Oct. 1900, U. of Illinois Press

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The BOOKER T. WASHINGTON Papers validity of the Louisiana constitution of Age, and I wrote suggesting that that money be either turned over to me, as secretary of the committee in charge of the fund, or that it be paid directly to Mr. Birney, who has charge of the case. The National Council, aside from our committee, has done nothing in the matter, but talk. The registration books in La., will close pretty soon, and then we shall have to wait two years before we can get a case, and in that time the people will have lost conficlence in us, and justly so. Mr. Birney went to work on the case according to our request and agreement, and we are in duty bound to keep our part of the contract. Ort account of the great work you are doing for our people at the South, and the delicate position which you occupy in cor~nection with that work, I think it best for you to keep in the background in matters like the Louisiana case. Your real friends appreciate your position, and will do nothing that is calculated to embarrass you in that work, or jeopardize your standing before the public. You are a man of good sense, and will appreciate the following quotation: ''A man is known by the company he keeps.'' Your address at Indianapolis was in excellent taste, and I thank God that you did not fall into the trap that had been set for you. I sent you The Star containing an interview relative to the Indianapolis convention. Mrs. Lawson desires to be kindly remembered to Mrs. Washington and Mrs. B. K. Bruce. Yours truly, TLS Con. ~78 BTW Papers DLC. Jesse Lawson ~ Arthur Alexis Birney (~85~-~9~6), grandson of the abolitionist James Gillespie Birney, was an assistant U.S. attorney in the 1870s. Beginning in 1880 he helped reorganize the law department of Howard University and lectured there for many years. Birney was U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 1893 to 1897. He and his father, William Birney (~8~9-~907), were law partners. At the time of this letter Birney was a partner in the Washington, D.C., firm of Birney and Woodward. 2Fredrick L. McGhee (~863-~9~) was a black lawyer in St. Paul, Minn., a civil rights activist in Minnesota in the logos, and a leader in the Afro-American Council. BTW turned to McGhee on several occasions that involved secret civil rights activities. In 1904 BTW used McGhee, who was a Democrat and a Catholic, to attempt to persuade Cardinal Gibbons in Baltimore to oppose disfranchisement in Maryland. Even though McGhee worked for BTW, he was not a loyal Bookerite. He pre648