nd needs better than the wealthy and educated classes. By the
rule of justice it has the same right precisely to give them legal
expression. That expression is bound to come, and it is wisest for it to
come through the ballot box than through mobs and violence born of a
feeling of misery and despair."

James Russell Lowell has said: "The right to vote makes a safety valve
of every voter, and the best way to teach a man to vote is to give him a
chance to practice. It is cheaper, too, in the long run to lift men up
than to hold them down. The ballot in their hands is less dangerous than
a sense of wrong in their heads."

[Illustration: BISHOP ALEXANDER WALTERS.

Born in Kentucky, August, 1858--Educated In the Common Schools of that
State--At Thirty-five Elected Bishop of the A. M. E. Zion Church, Taking
High Rank as a Theologian, Originator and First President of the
National Afro American Council--Thinker, Orator and Leader.]

CHAPTER IX.

Among the estimable friendships I made on the Pacific Coast forty years
ago was Philip A. Bell, formerly of New York City, one of nature's
noblemen, broad in his humanity and intellectually great as a
journalist. As editor of The Elevator, a weekly newspaper still
published in San Francisco, he made its pages brilliant with
scintillations of elegance, wealth of learning, and vigor of advocacy.
To his request for a correspondent I responded in a series of letters. I
forbear to insert them here, as they describe the material and political
status of British Columbia thirty-five years ago--being well aware that
ancient history is not the most entertaining. But, as I read them I
cannot but note, in the jollity of their introduction, the immature
criticism, consciousness of human fallability, broadening of
conclusions, mellowed by hope for the future that seemed typical of a
life career. Like the horse in "Sheridan's Ride," their beginning "was
gay, with Sheridan fifty miles away;" but if they were helpful with a
truth-axiom or a moiety of inspiration--as a view of colonial conduct of
a nation, with which we were then and are now growing in affinity--the
purpose was attained.

At first the affairs of British Columbia and Vancouver were administered
by one Governor, the connection was but nominal; Vancouver Island had
control by a representative Parliament of its own; the future seemed
auspicious. Later they, feeling it "in fra dig" to divide the prestige
of government, severed