Twelve clangs from the clock on the east wall of Little Rock’s city council chamber interrupted the aldermen as they were about to cast another vote to elect the council’s new president. It was midnight and most of them could not recall how many previous ballots had been taken on this question. Was it 670, or maybe 680? No matter how many, they were sure how the next ballot would tally: four votes for Alderman Frederick Kramer and four votes for someone else.
When the clock quieted, the man at the head of the oblong table
in the middle of the council chamber called on the aldermen to resume voting. As
usual, he, Frederick Kramer, the temporary chairman of this first meeting of
the 1871-72 city council, received his own vote and those of Aldermen Daniel Parham
Upham, Daniel Ottenheimer, and Asa L. Richmond. Also, unsurprisingly, his main
rival, Alderman Dudley Emerson Jones, voted for himself and got the votes of Aldermen
George Wilson Denison, Jerome Lewis, and Henry Thomas Gibb. Another 4-4 tie.
 |
| Frederick Kramer Arkansas Gazette, Sept 9, 1896 |
After announcing the results, Kramer quickly called for
another vote on the issue. As the familiar process restarted, the few remaining
spectators stirred. White men, leaning uncomfortably on the wall by the clock,
shifted positions. Next to them, the city clerk dipped his pen into an inkwell.
On the other side of the room, across the tobacco-stained carpet, a small
audience of black men clustered around a drum stove as they watched Alderman
Lewis, the blackest and oldest man seated at the oval table, doodle images of a
fish. [1] Next
to him, Denison, the whitest and youngest alderman, sat quietly.
**********
For the whole story of the 701 votes for the president of the Little Rock city council in 1871, go to the paper available at the following link:
**********
For the whole story of the 701 votes for the president of the Little Rock city council in 1871, go to the paper available at the following link:
 |
| George Denison (from Ancestry-com) |
 |
| Alderman Jones and his Wife (Ancestry.com) |
