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THE REFORMER.

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In 1892, also, The Reformer, described as "the headlight of the organization, an industrial, agricultural, and financial paper, an economic journal in the interest of the Negro race,” was founded, and it began publication in January, 1893, first as a bimonthly, then, after some months, as a weekly. It had a circulation in 1900 of over 8,000, and a job printing department is attached to its office.

OLD FOLKS' HOMES.

In 1893 the Grand Fountain decided to begin the collection of money "for the erection of Old Folks' Homes, for the benefit of the old people of the entire race regardless of society or denomination." In 1897 a farm of 6344 acres, known as the Westham farm and the site of the historic Westham iron furnace within 6 miles of Richmond, in Henrico County, Va., was bought at a cost of $14,400, for the location of the first Old Folks' Home. There is a large dwelling house, with the usual outhouses, on this farm; and it is further designed to erect suitable buildings for inmates as soon as sufficient funds shall have been collected for the purpose.

In August, 1898, the circuit court of the city of Richmond granted a charter of incorporation containing the following provisions:

1. The said association is to be known by the name of the Old Folks' Homes of the Grand Fountain, United Order of True Reformers. 2. The capital stock of the said association shall be nominally $5,000, and divided into shares of $5 each.

3. The object of this association is to establish self-sustaining institutions where the aged, infirm, and indigent members of the colored race may be provided with a comfortable home, gratuitously or on such terms as may be prescribed by the by-laws of the association.

4. For the purposes herein set forth, to take and hold all real estate not exceeding $200,000 in value and personal property that may be purchased, given, granted, bequeathed, and devised to it, and to change investments, to exchange or sell real estate, and to deal with said property as may seem judicious.

5. The board of directors elected by the Grand Fountain, United Order of True Reformers, at its annual meetings, shall constitute the board of governors of the said association, with power to make such by-laws, rules, and regulations, and to select such officers and committees as will be necessary to the correct management of the association.

6. The principal office of the association shall be in the city of Richmond.

In 1898 a surveyor was employed and a settlement to be. known as Brownsville was laid off in lots of one-half acre each, on the part of the Westham farm adjoining Westham Station, Henrico County, Va. The lots front on a broad street, and are for sale at $50 each, on terms of easy payment.

Up to December, 1901, the most important progress made in this scheme of a home for the aged was that the Old Folks' Home as a corporation had gotten together enough money to repay the purchase money advanced by the Grand Fountain, and therefore to own its property free of obligation. The farm was being improved gradually; fruit trees had been planted; arrangements were being made to test the feasibility of establishing a dairy farm to sell milk in Richmond. The home as such was not open to inmates; the additional buildings had not been put up by the contributions of the different. States, as is the hoped-for realization of the scheme; and the lots in the proposed Brownsville had not been sold nor offered for sale in any active way. The management seemed to be making haste with conservative slowness, and, while by no means idle, was waiting wisely for a sufficient contribution of funds by the charitable public. A considerable portion of the farm is in woods, and, with proper handling, it can be made the source of perennial revenue at a very small outlay, as Richmond will absorb all the wood that the farm can supply.

The Old Folks' Home seemed to be regarded as the ward of the organization, to be fostered, and not as an institution intended to strengthen it financially.

THE REFORMERS' MERCANTILE AND INDUSTRIAL

ASSOCIATION.

In September, 1899, the annual session of the Grand Fountain decided to apply for a charter of an importance to it second only to the bank charter granted by the legislature eleven years before. On December 15, 1899, the circuit court of Richmond granted a charter incorporating the Reformers' Mercantile and Industrial Association, and containing the following provisions:

I. The corporate name of the association shall be The Reformers' Mercantile and Industrial Association.

II. The purposes for which this association is formed are, first, to manufacture, buy, and sell, at wholesale or retail, or both, groceries, goods, wares, implements, supplies, and articles of merchandise of any and every description, manufactured or grown, in this State or any other States or country, on its own account, and also for others on commission or otherwise; and to establish and maintain warehouses and stores at such places as may be agreed upon by the board of directors; second, to build and erect a hotel in the city of Richmond, Va., to lease out said hotel so erected, or to conduct and carry on the hotel business therein, as shall be determined by the board of directors of said association; third, to conduct and carry on newspaper, book, and job printing business in all its branches, and do generally all the things that pertain to a printing establishment; fourth, to buy and sell and improve land in the State of Virginia or elsewhere with the right to lay off the same into lots, streets, and alleys, to improve said lands by erecting buildings thereon, and to dispose of the same as shall seem best for the interest of the association, and

shall have authority to dispose of any real or personal estate, or to mortgage or otherwise encumber the same as may be deemed necessary by its board of directors to the proper prosecution of its business, and may on any real property acquired erect and maintain any structure and machinery needful for the manufacturing of any kind of wood, metals, wool, cotton, and other materials, and may operate, lease, sell, or otherwise dispose of the same; and said company is authorized to borrow money when necessary for the better conduct of its business and to secure the same when so ordered by the board of directors; sixth, to conduct a building and loan business and loan associations.

III. The capital stock of this company shall not be less than $100,000.

IV. The capital stock shall be divided into shares of $100 each, payable in such installments as the board of directors may direct.

V. The real estate to be held shall not exceed 3,000 acres of land in any county of this State, or of any other State or country.

VI. The principal office of the company shall be, and its chief business shall be carried on, in the city of Richmond, Va., but it is authorized to engage in mercantile, hotel, building and loan, printing, and may transact any other business authorized by this charter anywhere in this or other States or countries as its interest may demand, at the discretion of the board of directors.

VII. The chief business to be transacted will be such as is necessary for the purposes herein set out in this charter.

VIII. The board of directors elected by the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, at every annual meeting, shall constitute the board of directors of said company.

Under this charter the association began business by opening a grocery and general merchandise store in Richmond in April, 1900; a second store in Washington, D. C., in March, 1901; a third and fourth in Manchester and Portsmouth, Va., in June, 1901; and a fifth in Roanoke, Va., in December, 1901. These stores were reported as doing a combined business of $75,000 a year, and the association as being rated as "O. K." by the mercantile agencies.

The business methods of the stores, as far as can be learned, are sound. Supplies, deliverable as needed, are bought in large quantities for cash, and are sold at a fair retail profit, likewise for cash; and the managers of the stores make weekly reports and daily (or weekly) remittances. This cash system prevents the overaccumulation of supplies and loading up the books with bad debts; and the system of frequent reports prevents the risk of large loss through dishonest employees.

The present policy of this department of the Grand Fountain is to extend the mercantile business as rapidly as possible, and to buy, where the success of the stores seems to justify it, lots for the erection of buildings for the use of the stores, for halls, and for other purposes of the general organization. Such buildings may reasonably be expected to pay for themselves. But the charter looks far beyond mere merchandising. It authorizes the association to manufacture as

well as to buy and sell; and it provides that land may be acquired, in Virginia or elsewhere, and may be so disposed of as to form the sites of manufacturing towns around shops and factories adapted to manufacturing the products of the forests or of the mine, or to converting the products of the sheep ranch or of the cotton field into textile fabrics. With this in view, the Mercantile Association is authorized to organize building and loan associations in Virginia or elsewhere.

If the Mercantile Association continues to be managed with what appears to be its present conservatism, there seems to be no reason why these aims should not be realized in so far as they may show themselves to be profitable and desirable.

HOTEL REFORMER.

The Hotel Reformer at No. 900 North Sixth street, Richmond, Va., has grown gradually under good executive management until now, by additions to the original building, it contains some fifty plain but neatly appointed living rooms, in which a considerable proportion of the office force of the Grand Fountain find their homes.

THE CHARTER OF THE ORGANIZATION.

On March 21, 1901, the charter of the organization was again amended and enlarged by the circuit court of Richmond, as follows:

It is ordered that the amended charter be altered and amended from the beginning to and including section 4 of the original charter so as to read instead of "The undersigned and their associates desiring to form," etc., as follows: "The undersigned and their associates are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate by the name and style of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, hereinafter called 'association,' under the provisions of the general laws of the land, being specially authorized and provided for in the acts of the regular session of 1897-98 of the general assembly of the State of Virginia, for the following purposes and objects, to wit:

"1. (a) To unite fraternally all colored persons of sound bodily health and good moral character and who are entitled to membership under the constitution and laws of the association, who are socially and otherwise acceptable to each other; (b) and to give all moral and material aid in its power to its members and those dependent upon them; (c) to educate its members, socially and morally and intellectually; (d) to establish a fund for the relief of the sick and distressed members, or for such other purposes as the association may determine; (e) to establish a benefit fund, from which, on satisfactory evidence of the death of a member of the association who has complied with all its lawful requirements, a sum not exceeding $5,000 shall be paid to the family heirs, blood relatives, affianced husband, affianced wife, or to a person dependent upon said member, as the member may direct; (f) to secure for its members such other advantages as are from time to time designated by the constitution and laws of the association.

"2. To purchase and hold, or receive by gift, real and personal property necessary for the transaction of the corporate business, and also to purchase real estate, where necessary, in the payment of any debt due the corporation, and to sell realty for the benefit of the association, and is hereby authorized to hold real property not to exceed $500,000.

"3. The private property of the members shall be exempted from the debts due by the corporation.

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"4. The said Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers shall have power to make its own constitution, by-laws, rules, and regulations, as well as the general laws for the government of all its branches, and to alter and amend the same, provided the same shall not conflict with the laws of this State nor the laws of the United States. The said association shall have power to organize, continue, and establish subordinate fountains of the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, throughout the State, also the several States of the United States, and in other countries, and they may have and enjoy such powers, privileges, and immunities as may be conferred upon them by the laws, rules, and regulations as may be enacted by the said association."

Also the words "The conformation of a joint stock company," in the court's order granting the original charter, be stricken out and the words "The formation of a fraternal beneficiary association" inserted.

This amended charter, as compared with the original charter, it will be observed, enlarges the powers of the Grand Fountain very considerably in several particulars, besides the very important one of increasing the real estate to be held from $25,000 to $500,000.

The control of the whole affiliated association, it is seen, is in the Grand Fountain, which is the legislative body and meets annually.

Up to 1898 the development of the True Reformers seems to have proceeded from the initiative and under the guiding impulse of Rev. William W. Browne, described in the Guide Book as "the leading financier and organizer of the Negro race." Since 1898 the official leader has been Rev. W. L. Taylor, born a slave in Caroline County, Va., but freed by the result of the civil war while yet a child.

The organization is managed and controlled exclusively by Negroes; but the investigator did not observe a single one of the administrative and executive officers who was not of mixed blood. The management of the organization seems to have shown and to be showing both ability to plan outlines and shrewdness in the grasp of details of administration and execution.

Such is the organization of the "True Reformers." The purpose of this report is simply to make a record, neither to praise nor to blame, nor yet to prophesy. The capabilities of the organization can be read at a glance; the permanent value of its achievements time alone will show.

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