This is a story of North Carolina Fusion days, two years before the Constitutional amendment, disfranchising the negro, was adopted. In 1896 the Populists, managed by Senator Marion Butler, of Sampson, and the Republicans by Senator Jeter C. Pritchard, of Buncombe, were standing together in the State for mutual benefit—for pelf and pie—what most all active politicians stand together for. The Democrats were down and out. Ex-Judge Daniel L. Russell, of Wilmington, and Hon. Oliver H. Dockery, of Mangum, both of the sixth congressional district, were the candidates for the Republican nomination for Governor, which, at that time, meant an election. Charlotte, Union, Anson, Richmond, Robeson, New Hanover and other counties were in the Shoestring district.

The Republicans were very busy.

That being before the negro was disfranchised, the Republican party in this immediate section of the State was largely composed of Afro-Americans. A county convention was held in Charlotte, and it was as black as Africa. Of course there was a sprinkling of white men in it, but nine out of ten of the delegates were colored. The Dockeryites and the Russellites came close to blows. There were rumors of wars, but no blood was shed.

Every county in the district had had a similar convention and named delegates to the Maxton meeting.

The all-absorbing question was: “Are you for Dockery or Russell?”

Mr. Dockery was known as the “Great Warhorse of the Pee Dee,” and Mr. Russell as “The Mighty Dan of New Hanover.”

The Maxton convention promised a live newspaper story. Unless the hand writing on the wall had been misread there was blood on the moon. Some sort of a fight seemed certain if the delegates of the Shoestring district ever got together.

It was at Maxton, as a common reporter, that I got my nickname, Red Buck, now a nom de plume. When the fight became warm I bolted without waiting ceremonies.

We, the Mecklenburg delegates to the district convention, and I, my paper’s reliance for the story of the day, left Charlotte on the early train, a bright spring morning, and journeyed eastward.

At Monroe the Union delegation got aboard, and at Wadesboro the Anson, and at Rockingham and Laurinburg, the Richmond.

The train was literally filled with negroes. I had a dull time with that crowd until we got to Rockingham, where Claude Dockery, whom I had met at the State University at Chapel Hill several years prior to that, joined the party and introduced me to the most interesting character in the Dockery contingent, Rich Lilly, a tall, wiry, limber negro, with juicy mouth and knappy, dusty head. Rich was going to do what he could toward the nomination of his old friend, Col. Oliver Dockery. Somewhere between Rockingham and Maxton Rich and I were thrown together, when no one else was near. Rich beckoned to me and dodged behind a freight car and, in order to see what he wanted, I followed.

“Boss, is you gwine to Maxton?” asked Rich, holding his right hand under his coat tail as if to draw his gun.

“Yes, sir. That is where I am bound for.”

“Well, say, boss, here’s des’ a little uv Duckery’s best, won’t you have er drink?”

“No, thank you, I don’t drink,” said I.

“Looker here, boss, you mus’ not be no delegate?”

“No, I am not.”

“Well, is yer gwine to de convention?”

“Yes.”

The train started and we got aboard. Rich could not understand; my attitude toward his elixir of life astonished him.

About 12 o’clock the convention met in a large hall, provided with a rostrum, over a store on Main street. The hall, having been used for a buggy warehouse, had a tramway that led from the sidewalk to the floor. Up this broad and slanting way the delegates and spectators traveled. I was one among the first to arrive, with a chair that I borrowed, a small lapboard and a tablet, and took my seat on the rostrum, in the north corner, against the rear wall, near a window that looked out on a back lot, believing that I had selected the best place in the house for my purpose.

At the appointed hour the hall was well filled with people, principally negroes. Seeing Mr. Claude Dockery talking and laughing with me, Rich Lilly became curious again, and, when no one was about, he came up, looked me in the eye and asked: “Boss, for Gawd’s sake, whut is you gwine ter do ef you ain’t no deligate.”

“I am going to sit here and watch you Republicans, take notes and write you up in the paper if you don’t behave yourselves,” was my reply.

“O, you’s er writer fur de paper?”

“Yes.”

“I sees.”

I do not recall any but the more violent incidents of the convention. As I sat there and watched the various delegations take their seats, a looker-on in Vienna pointed out some of the celebrities.

“That man with the long beard and long fig-stemmed pipe, is Dr. R. M. Norment, of Lumberton,” said my coach. “The man with the cripple hand is Col. B. Bill Terry. The long-armed man with abbreviated trousers and coat sleeves, is Speaking Henry Covington.”

Many others were named, but I have forgotten most of them. Later Big Bill Sutton, of Bladen, came in. He did not belong to the convention, but it was understood that he was there to lead the Russell forces in a rough-house affair if his services were needed.

No one would have imagined that the quiet, lifeless body of men of the first half hour of the convention would become the mob that it did before the day was over.

The trouble began when the convention voted on a permanent chairman, each side claiming the majority when the balloting was over. The god of peace had quit the meeting and the devil taken possession. Mr. A. M. Long, of Rockingham, a handsome man, with good face, was put up by the Dockeryites, and a Wilmington negro by the Russellites. Both Mr. Long and the darkey tried to take the seat, each mounting the rostrum and seizing a chair.

This was the signal for a general fight, which began on the stage.

Knowing the power of Speaking Henry’s lungs the Dockery delegates began to yell “Covington,” “Covington,” “speech,” but in the meantime the Wilmington negro, the Russell chairman, had been deprived of his seat by force. Mr. Long held his with a brace of Colts.

I want the reader to understand that the fight then in progress was none of my affair. To tell the whole truth I did look on with considerable satisfaction until I saw two or three men produce pistols; from that time I had one eye on the convention and the other looking for a way to escape.

Every fighting man was coming to the rostrum, throwing nervous delegates out of the way as he advanced.

Rich Lilly brought first blood. The calls for Henry Covington, the supple man with the oily tongue, were heeded by that gentleman, who was just as fearless as wordy, and while others glared and swore at each other he was making the welkin ring with Dockery thunder. No man ever made more gestures and took longer strides than did Speaking Henry that afternoon.

With a quart of mean liquor in his stomach and a cigarette in his mouth, Rich Lilly, the warmest Dockeryite of them all, pranced behind Mr. Covington, following him with his hands and feet as far as he could without injuring himself.

Seeing this double-barreled performance I lost sight of the free-for-all fight on the opposite side of the stage. It wasn’t what Mr. Covington said but the way he said it that attracted. Except for the difference in color one would have taken Speaking Henry and Rich Lilly for the Gold Dust twins.

“Tell it to ’em!” shouted Rich, every time he hit the floor.

“Yes, Lawd, let ’em have it. Dere ain’t no candi-date but Col. Duckery!”

Tiring of this, a Russell man in the back section of the hall roared out: “Five dollars for the man who will pull that long-legged devil down from there.”

No sooner had the offer been made than did a short, stocky, big-headed negro, with a Van Dyke beard, start from the fifth row of seats toward the stand to catch Covington by the leg.

I mounted my chair to see. Having the advantage of the pedestal I could take in everything.

Speaking Henry had charged and jumped and squatted and bounced until his trousers, all too short, had climbed nearly to his knees and his heavy home-knit socks had fallen over his shoe tops. He was about ready to fly when the designing negro reached out for his thin, bare shank.

But there came a turn; Rich Lilly, who had heard the offer and seen the negro start and wend his way to the stage, was guarding the speaker. Just as the Wilmington delegate made a pass at the Dockery speaker, Rich bowed his back, like a Thomas cat, ducked, shot forward and gave him a blow between the eyes and floored him. Speaking Henry never let up. In fact, he never knew what had happened until the convention was over. Rich resumed his antics until he recalled the fact that I was taking notes and then rushed back to where I had dropped into my seat, put his hands on my knees, looked me in the face and asked, seriously: “Say, boss, did I act lak er delegate?”

“Yes, indeed, do it again.”

To my certain knowledge Rich hammered five other delegates after that and came to see if I approved of the manner in which he did it.

But I was forced to forget Speaking Henry and Rich Lilly. Other incidents, more exciting and more strenuous, were in progress. Big Bill Sutton had come upon the rostrum and was throwing delegates east and west. Having the advantage of a tremendous frame and a notorious reputation as a scrapper he walked roughshod over less fortunate ones. But there was one man, with a keen eye, an iron face and frosted hair, that was not afraid to face him, and that was Mr. Dan Morrison, of Rockingham, a Republican leader at that time.

As old man Bill surged on the rostrum his son, Dave, screamed back at Henry Covington from the hall. I saw Mr. Morrison climb on the rostrum, and knew that he was mad. He and Big Bill glowered at each other for an instant at twenty paces. Two seconds later they were rushing at each other, like vicious dogs. They did not have a head-on collision, but side-swiped. The Rockingham man got the best of the first round; he tore Sutton’s collar and tie from his neck and held it between the thumb and forefinger, so that all might see. Friends interfered and prevented an ugly affair.

“Clear the rostrum!” shouted some one from the hall.

That is what the chairmen and their friends had been trying to do for some minutes. But the delegates crowded around the edge until they were fifteen or twenty deep and the rostrum was alive with opposing factions.

After the Morrison-Sutton mix-up the fighting became general. Some fellow in the house knocked Dr. Norment over a seat, jamming his pipe stem halfway down his throat.

Times were beginning to look squally for me, and I had no way out. To my left was a window, but if I went out that it meant a fall of 20 feet to the ground; to my right, an anteroom, with a small, thin wall; going out, down the steps from the rostrum, the way I came in, seemed at that time an impossibility. While considering the advisability of going into the anteroom and closing the door I saw an upheaval across from me and before I could catch my breath an old darkey sailed into the room and slammed the door and I was cut off there.

All the while the mob on the rostrum became blacker and more like a negro festival. The old cornfield negroes were just beginning to catch the spirit of the meeting. As the colored delegates increased the white ones stole away, imagining that something would be doing soon.

Seeing the change in color and temperament of the stage crowd I began to have serious concern about my own welfare. Had the fight been among my own people I might have taken a hand, but to sit idly by and be punctured with a pistol or a knife was not to my liking. I was slow in making up my mind. But there came a time when I had to act before thinking it over. As I sat there and wondered what injuries I would receive if I jumped out the window, a big negro, perhaps a ditcher, clad in overalls and wearing a cap and high-top boots, broke through the mob in the hall, jumped up on the stand immediately in front of me, and began to finger in his boot and swear. I heard him mumble to himself: “I’ll be d—d ef I don’t clar dis hall when I get ole Sallie.”

I had an idea that “Ole Sallie” was a weapon of some sort, and I was right, for a half a second later the big nigger rose to his full height, threw open a razor, turned around three times (coming close to me as he wheeled) and yelled, “Git off uv dis stage, don’t I’ll cut yo’ throats—every one uv you.”

I was the first to leave, going over the heads of the mob that had collected about the edge of the stage. My notebook flew to the right and my lapboard to the left, while I continued my flight straight ahead down the tramway. As I struck the street, old man B. B. Terry, whom I knew very well, stood behind the wall of the brick building, and peeping up the exit, said: “I gad, that’s no place for a well man, much less a cripple.” I did not argue the point.

I was followed by many hundreds. In fact, the entire Russell delegation bolted, some going through the windows and others down the tramway.

The Dockery men remained and passed a few resolutions, but there was no more fighting.

Late that afternoon, when the westbound delegates were waiting at the station to take the train, some one discovered that Uncle Hampton, a very ancient colored delegate from Monroe, was missing. I heard the talking and inquired as to his appearance.

“Why,” said I, “that is the old fellow that went in the anteroom when the fight began.”

A party of us visited the hall and knocked on the locked door, but did not get a response. Finally we broke in and there sat old man Hampton, jouked down in the corner, afraid to move.

Claude Dockery, who sat on the roof and saw me make the famous leap, went to Raleigh and told Tom Pence, the city editor of The Times-Visitor, that “Red Buck had bolted the convention.” I was the butt of papers and politicians for weeks. The Old Man said, in an editorial, that “Red Buck” would have to explain why he bolted and he did as best he could. Mr. Caldwell had dubbed me “Brick Top,” “Strawberry Blond,” and “Red Buck,” and the last name stuck because of the Maxton convention and Claude Dockery’s interview.