FOLLOWING BIOGRAPHY ON BACK OF PLATE:

Mr. White was born in a log cabin, located at the confluence of "Richland Branch" and "Slap Swamp" in Bladen County, North Carolina, near the line of Columbus County, remote from cities and towns. His maternal grandmother was half-Indian and his paternal grandmother was Irish, full blood. His other admixture is facetiously described as "mostly Negro." His early boyhood was a struggle for bread and a very little butter, his schooling being necessarily neglected. He usually attended two or three months in the year, Later. by dint and toil, and saving a few dollars, he was able to secure training under Prof. D. P. Allen, President of the Whitten Normal School at Lumberton, N. C., and afterwards entered Howard University at Washington, graduating from the eclectic department in 1877. Believing that he could best serve his race and himself as an advocate of justice, he read law while taking the academic course, completing his reading under Judge William J. Clarke, at North Carolina, and was licensed to practice in all courts of that State by the Supreme Court in 1879. Although Mr. White has won marked success In several walks of life, as lawyer teacher and business man, it is his political achievements that have won for him not only a national reputation, but have evoked no small degree of comment from the press and diplomats of many of the countries of the old world. It is worthy of remark that up to this time, at the age of forty-nine, he has never held an appointive office, his commissions coming invariably from the hands of the sovereign people direct. He was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1880, and to the State Senate In 1884; was elected solicitor and prosecuting attorney for the second judicial district of North Carolina for four years. In 1886, and for a like term in 1890; was nominated for Congress in 1894, but withdrew in the interest of harmony in his party. He made the race for Congress in 1896 and was triumphantly elected by a majority of 4,000, reversing a normal democratic majority of over 5,000, a change of fully 9,000 votes, indicating in no uncertain tone the confidence and esteem in which he was held by his friends and neighbors. He was re-elected in 1898. His services as a legislator were conscientious and invaluable. At the close of his second term, he delivered a the country, which was universally praised as the best, truest and most valedictory to timely expression of the Negro's plea for equality of citizenship that ever rang through the halls of Congress. The speech was widely circulated, and was favorably commented upon by the leading newspapers of the nation. Mr. White, has accumulated quite a handsome fortune, his wealth being estimated at from $20,000 to $30,000. His personal popularity and the respect for his ability are attested by the fact that several honorary degrees have been conferred upon him by a number of the noted educational institutions of the land. Mr. White is a thirty-third degree Mason. For six years he was Grand Master of Masons for the State of North Carolina, having filled most of the subordinate offices in that body before his elevation to the Grand Mastership. Since his retirement from Congress, Mr. White has been engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D. C., and so favorably has he impressed his qualifications upon the bench and bar of the national capital that one of the judges publicly, and without precedent, complimented him in open court and set his methods up as an example for other lawyers who practice there. Eminent as are his abilities, Mr. White is proverbially modest. Of strong character, well-balanced mind and an unswerving sense of justice, liberal in views upon all subjects, political, social or religious, companionable in private life, unostentatious in manner of living or in the bestowal of charity, ready to sacrifice personal convenience to serve the worthy, Mr. White is Indeed a typical American. The Negro people, in slavery or freedom, as serfs or citizens, offer no model more inspiring, no picture more inviting.