to
entertain the suit brought by the Negroes.

In the administration of Anthony W. Gardiner (three terms, 1878-1883)
difficulties with England and Germany reached a crisis. Territory in
the northwest was seized; the British made a formal show of force at
Monrovia; and the looting of a German vessel along the Kru Coast and
personal indignities inflicted by the natives upon the shipwrecked
Germans, led to the bombardment of Nana Kru by a German warship and the
presentation at Monrovia of a claim for damages, payment of which was
forced by the threat of the bombardment of the capital. To the Liberian
people the outlook was seldom darker than in this period of calamities.
President Gardiner, very ill, resigned office in January of his last
year of service, being succeeded by the vice-president, Alfred F.
Russell. More and more was pressure brought to bear upon Liberian
officials for the granting of monopolies and concessions, especially to
Englishmen; and in his message of 1883 President Russell said, "Recent
events admonish us as to the serious responsibility of claims held
against us by foreigners, and we cannot tell what complications may
arise." In the midst of all this, however, Russell did not forget the
natives and the need of guarding them against liquor and exploitation.

Hilary Richard Wright Johnson (four terms, 1884-1891), the next
president, was a son of the distinguished Elijah Johnson and the first
man born in Liberia who had risen to the highest place in the republic.
Whigs and Republicans united in his election. Much of his time had
necessarily to be given to complications arising from the loan of 1871;
but the western boundary was adjusted (with great loss) with Great
Britain at the Mano River, though new difficulties arose with the
French, who were pressing their claim to territory as far as the Cavalla
River. In the course of the last term of President Johnson there was an
interesting grant (by act approved January 21, 1890) to F.F. Whittekin,
of Pennsylvania, of the right to "construct, maintain, and operate a
system of railroads, telegraph and telephone lines." Whittekin bought up
in England stock to the value of half a million dollars, but died on the
way to Liberia to fulfil his contract. His nephew, F.F. Whittekin, asked
for an extension of time, which was granted, but after a while the whole
project languished.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Liberia_, Bulletin No. 5, November, 1894.]

Joseph James Chees