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FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO NATHAN SPRAGUE
Washington, D.C. 30 May 1874.
MY DEAR NATHAN:
I am obliged by your letter and also by a box of my favorite crackers. Matters are proceeding here about as usual. The boys are struggling manfully to keep their paper afloat. They had no notion of letting the paper fail, but I fear they will have to. If they do not, and make a success they will be entitled to a large measure of praise. I have got myself in a hard place in this Freedman’s Bank and shall consider myself fortunate if I get out of it as easily as I got into it. I was wanted to bolster up the credit of the concern and to get through some legislation in its favor.1In the waning phase of his last newspaper, the New National Era, Douglass accepted an offer to become president of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company, also based in Washington, D.C. That institution was floundering well before Douglass’s arrival—a reality hidden from him by its trustees, who recruited him in a last-ditch effort to bolster its credibility. In his capacity as the bank’s official spokesperson, Douglass wrote a number of circulars and public letters, trying in vain to preserve confidence in the bank. Acknowledging some prior mismanagement, he emphasized the important purpose for which the bank had been created: “The mission of the Freedman’s Bank is to show our people the road to a share of the wealth and well being of the world. It has already done much to lift the race into respectability, and, with their continued confidence and patient cooperation, it will continue to reflect credit upon the race and promote their welfare.” Finally admitting defeat, Douglass oversaw the institution’s closing on 2 July 1874. Circular reprinted in U.S. Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Investigate the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company, Report, 2 April 1880, 46th Cong., 2d sess., Senate Report 440 (Serial 1895), appendix, 44–45; Osthaus, Freedmen, Philanthropy, and Fraud, 183; Fleming, “Freedmen’s Savings Bank,” 85–86. When this is done as I hope it will be soon, I may separate myself from it, and go on with my literary work which I should have never have abandoned.
Love to Dear Rosetta,2Rosetta Douglass Sprague. and the children.
Truly yours,
FREDK. DOUGLASS
ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 32, frame 23L, FD Papers, DLC.