State

William J. Peele l>w cili/ons of North Cnrol ina liavo boon more zealous in tlic»ir determination to bring about racial, sociological and educa¬ tional reforms than this brent Commoner was. Ну R. C. LAWRENCE “ТГЕАСН him to hate shams; to I bo satisfied with nothing less и than genuine success; teach him to love some great truth; to woo it tenderly; bravely to marry it; and faithfully guard it through life. Teach him that we need men more than money; teach him to love nothing but virtue; to fear nothing but God." William J. Peele. addressing his University Class¬ mates. They have a portrait of Peele in "Peele Hall" at STATE COL¬ LEGE. but the artist painted no such picture as Peele unconsciously painted of himself in the words quoted above. For these words were his corner stone; they were his chart and compass; they consti¬ tuted the pole star of his life. I well remember this unassum¬ ing Raleigh lawyer -his stocky, bearded figure; his moody manner; his plain and musty law office over a wholesale grocery store on a side street. You would never have sus¬ pected that here was a Prophet and a Great Commoner- but Peele was both, and was in addition a Model Citizen. Like the Kohinoor diamond when found by a Kaffir on the African veldt, Peele’s ex¬ terior may have been a bit un¬ couth; but within his soul glowed with celestial fire. An Example of Modesty He cared nothing for money; he shunned publicity; he ran for no office; he asked nothing for him¬ self; he sought neither pomp nor the panoply of power. He was a modest, retiring man of quiet man¬ ner. who practiced law because forced to earn a livelihood; one who taught good citizenship be¬ cause he loved it. When I knew him, he was unmarried, spending his days in his office; his nights in the solitary quiet of his lonely room, poring over his beloved Latin and Greek classics, or else busying himself over some scheme for reform which had germinated in his active and fertile brain. He had the soul of a poet; the vision of a seer; the heart of a hero. He was a born reformer, and a passion for the public weal flamed in his heart from his early youth. When he graduated from our Uni¬ versity in the class of 1879. the theme he selected for his oration was "Philosophy of Reform." and so soon as he entered upon the practice of his profession, what he then observed stirred his soul and moved his indignation. Peele was a Plebian, a com¬ moner, he belonged to no aristoc¬ racy save that of brains and the public welfare. Even his law office was in a plain place, on a back street, where the farmers con¬ gregated when they came to town on Saturday. Peele talked with these, pondered what they said and what he himself observed; then he lifted his eyes unto the hills, and with high resolve determined that certain conditions must and should be remedied. Illiteracy at its Worst For he saw illiteracy at its worst — adult heads of households who could neither read nor write, nor figure the value of one bale of cotton they had for sale; he saw them paying 8 per cent interest, plus fees, commissions and other charges; he saw the tillers of the soil in the clutches of the com¬ mission men, or "time merchants” who made advances in the Spring against the crop to be harvested in the Fall, and who charged un¬ conscionable profit on everything they sold. He saw the price of every agricultural product low, and that the producer was not re¬ ceiving a living wage for his labor. Pondering these and other prob¬ lems of the i>eople, Peele conceived that one of the best remedies would be an Industrial College. He originated the "Open Forum" idea in our State, and in 1884 founded a Club which he named "Watauga,” selecting that name because, as he said, in that county there was a tiny stream which in its onward flow became a mighty river; and he hoped that his Club, small in its inception, would be¬ come a mighty influence for good in the future. This Club met monthly for the discussion of some question of public welfare. It was a somewhat curious provision in its makeup that no one was eligible to membership who was old enough to have seen service in the Confederate army. For Peele lived not in the past at all; only but little in the present; but very much in the future. It was his desire that the Club be not domi¬ nated by ex-Confcderates who lived upon their memories of a dead past and upon the traditions of an exploded theory of govern¬ ment. For had Peele lived in the era of the Civil War he could not have espoused the cause of the Southland, for he was opposed to slavery in all its forms — slavery of the soul and slavery of the body. Three Ghosts Walter Hines Page (himself a member of the Club) said there were three ghosts still gibbering in our State which should be laid forever in their graves: the ghost of the Confederate past; the ghost of racial hatred; the ghost of sectarian pride. Peele joined in these sentiments wholeheartedly, for his objectives lay ahead in the future. From his editorial office in Atlanta, through the press and on the platform. Henry W. Grady was proclaiming a new birth of freedom for the South— and such a South was sought by Peele. He speedily brought his idea for an Industrial College before the Watauga Club, and Dr. Charles W. Dabney, who thereafter became President of the University of Cincinnati, was assigned to pre¬ pare a paper on the subject. Dabney evidently had the benefit of Peele’s assistance in its prepara¬ tion, as at the time referred to, Peele was the only man in the State who had the necessary data at his disposal, or any practical plan for the operation of such an institution as he proposed. When this paper was read, the impression it produced was so profound that a committee was forthwith named ( Continued on page 17) 9