Charles W. Chesnutt to Wendell P. Dabney, 11 May 1932
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May 11, 1932
W. P. Dabney, Esq.,
Editor, The Union,1
412 McAllister Street,
Cincinnati, Ohio.
My dear Brother Dabney:
Thank you very much for the box of delicious chocolates which you were good enough to send me the other day. The family have helped me in eating them up down to the last one, and we enjoyed them immensely.
I see from the morning papers that we have been having a primary election.2 So far as I have read the returns, prohibition seems to be on the defensive, if not yet on the run. It looks as though the "noble experiment" had not been an entire success.3
The A. M. E. General Conference 4 is in session here, last week and this week. It seems as though the dark reverend fathers in God (meaning the bishops), are in a bad way. In addition to the one who was mixed up in the woman scrape several months ago, one, Bishop Vernon, has been suspended for four years, and two others are on the carpet, all for misappropriating the funds which came into their hands. I don't know how many bishops there are, probably a dozen, but four is a very large percentage. They are going to elect two others. Let us hope that they will be at least honest.5
Thank you again, I remain,
Cordially yours, CWC:MKCorrespondent: Wendell Phillips Dabney (1865–1952) was a Black activist, musician and journalist. Originally from Richmond, Virginia, he moved to Ohio in 1883 to study at Oberlin, and then to Cincinnati in 1894. He worked for the city of Cincinnati from 1895 until 1923 and was the founder, editor, and publisher of the Black weekly paper The Union (1907–1952). Chesnutt and Dabney knew of each other in the 1920s, but only their 1930s correspondence survives.
1. The Union was a Cincinnati-based Black weekly newspaper founded in 1907 by Wendell Phillips Dabney (1865–1952), who edited it until his death. Initially affiliated with the Republican Party, it identified as Independent after 1925. [back]
2. The Ohio Republican primary election of 1932 was held on May 10. Key races included those for President, governor, and the U.S. Senate. All of the Republican candidates for these offices lost to Democrats in the November election, except for Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), who won the presidential primary in Ohio but withdrew before the national convention in June; incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) lost to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945). [back]
3. The phrase "noble experiment" for the nationwide prohibition of alcohol production and sales in the US is attributed to Herbert Hoover (1874–1964), who ran for president in 1928 on a Prohibition ("dry") platform. By 1932, many Republicans were calling for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, although the official Republican platform proposed, instead, an amendment that would have given individual states the power to decide whether to allow alcohol sales. The anti-Prohibition ("wet") candidates won many races in the May 10, 1932, Republican Primary in Ohio. Chesnutt, writing on the day after the primary, would have seen preliminary results in the morning papers under headlines like "Wets Swing State; Put Bettman Ahead of Taber" (Cleveland Plain Dealer [May 11, 1932]: 1, 6). [back]
4. The 29th national Quadrennial A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church Conference was held in Cleveland May 2–16, 1932. [back]
5. Three bishops were temporarily suspended at the A.M.E. Quadrennial Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, in May 1932, all charged with misappropriation of church funds: William Tecumseh Vernon (1871–1944), William Decker Johnson (1869–1936), and Joshua Henry Jones (1856–1932). A fourth, who has not been identified, was involved in a sexual scandal earlier that year. Three new A.M.E. bishops were sworn in during the conference: Noah Wellington Williams (1876–1954), David Henry Sims (1885–1965), and Henry Young Tookes (1882–1948). [back]
