at was the character of the information that they gave you?
A. Well, the character of the information they brought to us was
very bad, sir.

* * * * *

Q. Do you remember any of these reports that you got from members
of your committee?--A. Yes, sir; they said in several parts where
they was that the land rent was still higher there in that part
of the country than it was where we first organized it, and the
people was still being whipped, some of them, by the old owners,
the men that had owned them as slaves, and some of them was being
cheated out of their crops just the same as they was there.

Q. Was anything said about their personal and political rights in
these reports as to how they were treated?--A. Yes; some of them
stated that in some parts of the country where they voted they
would be shot. Some of them stated that if they voted the
Democratic ticket they would not be injured.

Q. Now let us understand more distinctly, before we go any
further, the kind of people who composed that association. The
committee, as I understand you, was composed entirely of laboring
people?--A. Yes, sir.

Q Did it include any politicians of either color, white or
black?--A. No politicianers didn't belong to it, because we
didn't allow them to know nothing about it, because we was
afraid that if we allowed the colored politicianers to belong to
it he would tell it to the Republican politicianers, and from
that the men that was doing all this to us would get hold of it
too, and then get after us.

* * * * *

Q. About what time did you lose all hope and confidence that your
condition could be tolerable in the Southern States?--A. Well we
never lost all hopes in the world till 1877.

Q. Why did you lose all hope in that year?--A. Well, we found
ourselves in such condition that we looked around and we seed
that there was no way on earth, it seemed, that we could better
our condition there, and we discussed that thoroughly in our
organization in May. We said that the whole South--every State in
the South--had got into the hands of the very men that held us
slaves--from one thing to another--and we thought that the men
that held us slaves was holding the reins of government over o