Dont circumscribe the able, noble souls among the Negroes. Give them the world as a playground for their talents and let Negro men dream of stars as do your men.""Don't circumscribe the able, noble souls among the Negroes. Give them the world as a playground for their talents and let Negro men dream of stars as do your men." (234-235).
"Your Bible says: 'And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.'White friends of the South! Let me beseech you to vex not this social stranger within your borders; the stranger who invades your swamps and drains them into his system for your comfort; who creeps through the slime of your sewers; who wrestles with the heat in your ditches and fields; who has borne your onerous burdens and cheered you with his song as he toiled; who has never heard the war whoop but that he has prepared for battle; whose one hope is to be allowed to live in peace by your side and develop his powers and those of his children that they may be factors in making of this land, the greatest in goodness in all this world. Don't circumscribe the able, noble souls among the Negroes. Give them the world as a playground for their talents and let Negro men dream of stars as do your men. They need that as much as you do. As for me, I shall leave your land."
Turning to Eunice, Tiara stretched forth her hands, appealingly and said, "Sister, come let us leave this country! Come."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Eunice, with almost maniacal intensity, as she waved her hand in disdain at Tiara, who now slowly left the witness stand.
All eyes were now turned toward Eunice, who had arisen and stood trying to drive away the passions of rage that seemed to clutch her vocal cords so that she could not speak. At last getting sufficient strength to begin, she said:
"Honorable Judge and you jurymen: I declare to you all to-day that I am a white woman. My blood is the blood of the whites, my instincts, my feelings, my culture, my spirit, my all is cast in the same mould as yours. That woman whotalked to you a few moments ago is a Negro. Don't honor her word above mine, the word of a white woman. I invoke your law of caste. Look at me! Look at my boy! In what respect do we differ from you?"
She paused and drawing her small frame to its full height, with her hands outstretched across the railing, with hot scalding tears coursing down her cheeks, she said in tremulous tones:
"And now, gentlemen, I came here hoping to be acquitted, but in view of the statements made I want no acquittal. Your law prescribes, so I am told, that there can be no such thing as a marriage between whites and Negroes. To acquit me will be to say that I am a Negro woman and could not have married a white man. I implore you to convict me! Send me to prison! Let me wear a felon's garb! Let my son know that his mother is a convict, but in the name of heaven I ask you, send not my child and me into Negro life. Send us not to a race cursed with petty jealousies, the burden bearers of the world. My God! the thought of being called a Negro is awful, awful!"
Eunice's words were coming fast and she was now all but out of breath. After an instant's pause, she began:
"One word more. For argument's sake, grant that I have some Negro blood in me. You already make a mistake in making a gift of your blood to the African. Remember what yourblood has done. It hammered out on fields of blood the Magna Charta; it took the head of Charles I.; it shattered the sceptre of George III.; it now circles the globe in an iron grasp. Think you not that this Anglo-Saxon blood loses its virility because of mixture with Negro blood. Ah! remember Frederick Douglass, he who as much as any other mortal brought armies to your doors that sacked your home. I plead with you, even if you accept that girl's malicious slanders as being true, not to send your blood back to join forces with the Negro blood."
Eunice threw an arm around her boy, who had arisen and was clutching her skirts. She parted her lips as if to speak farther, then settled back in her seat and closed her pretty blue eyes. Her tangled locks fell over her forehead and the audience looked in pity at the tired pretty girl.
Eunice's attorneys waived their rights to speak and the attorney for the prosecution stated that he, too, would now submit the case without argument.
"Without further formality the jury will take this case under advisement. You need no charge from me. You are all Anglo-Saxons," said the judge solemnly in a low tone of voice.
The jury filed into the jury room and began its deliberations. A tall, white haired man, foreman of the jury, arose and spoke as follows:
"Gentlemen: We have a sad case before us to-day. That girl has the white person's feelingsand it seems cruel to crush her and drive her from those for whom she has the most affinity to those whom she is least like. Then, I pity the boy. He carries in his veins some of our proudest blood, and it seems awful to cast away our own. But we must stand by our rule. One drop of Negro blood makes its possessor a Negro.
"Our great race stands in juxtaposition with overwhelming millions of darker people throughout the earth, and we must cling to the caste idea if we would prevent a lapse that would taint our blood and eventually undermine our greatness. It is hard, but it is civilization. We cannot find this girl guilty. It would be declaring that marriage between a white man and a Negro woman is a possibility."
A vote was taken and the jury returned to the court room to render the verdict. "The prisoner at the bar will stand up," said the judge. Eunice stood up and her little boy stood up as well. There was the element of pathos in the standing up of that little boy, for the audience knew that his destiny was involved in the case.
"Has the jury reached a verdict?" asked the judge.
"We have," replied the foreman.
"Please announce it."
The audience held its breath in painful suspense. Eunice directed her burning gaze to the lips of the foreman, that she might, if possible,catch his fateful words even before they were fully formed.
"We, the jury, find the prisoner not guilty."
"Murder!" wildly shrieked Eunice. "Doomed! Doomed! They call us Negroes, my son, and everybody knows what that means!" Her tones of despair moved every hearer.
The judge quietly shed a few tears and many another person in the audience wept. The crowd filed out, leaving Eunice clasping her boy to her bosom, mother and son mingling their tears together. Tiara lingered in the corridor to greet Eunice when the latter should come out of the room. She had thought to speak to her on this wise:
"Eunice, we have each other left. Let us be sisters as we were in the days of our childhood."
But when Tiara confronted Eunice, the latter looked at her scornfully and passed on. When Tiara somewhat timidly caught hold of her dress as if to detain her, Eunice spat in her face and tore herself loose.
Decorative Chapter End.
WWith slow, uncertain step, a wild haunted look in her eye, Eunice, clutching her little boy's hand until it pained him, moved down the corridor toward the door leading out of the court house. She was about to face the world in the South as a member of the Negro race, and the very thought thereof spread riot within her soul. The nearer she drew to the door the greater was the anguish of her spirit. More than once she turned and retraced her steps in the corridor, trying to muster the courage to face the outer world in her new racial alignment. At last she stood near the door, her whole frame trembling as a result of the sweeping over her spirit of storm after storm of emotions. Her little boy, unable to grasp the import of his mother's behavior was eagerly scanning her face and weeping silently in instinctive sympathy.
With a sudden burst of courage Eunice stepped out of the court house door and a young white man, who had been awaiting her, stepped up to speak to her. His hat was tilted back on his head,a lighted cigar was in his mouth, and his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets.
Eunice looked up at him, saw the wicked leer in his eyes, and recoiled.
"Don't be scared, Eunice. I stayed here to tell you that the hackman who brought you here got a chance to make a little extra by taking some white ladies home and said for you to stay here until he got back. Hewon'tbe gone but a few minutes."
The suggestive look, the patronizing tone, the failure to use "Mrs.," on the part of the man that addressed her, and the action of the hackman in leaving her to take some white woman home, served as a tonic to brace up the quailing spirit of Eunice.
Her first brush with the world as a member of the Negro race had aroused her fighting spirit.
"How dare you address me in that manner, you boorish wretch!" exclaimed Eunice, her small frame shaking with indignation.
The young man seemed rather to enjoy Eunice's rage and coolly replied, "Well, Eunice, you know, Eunice, that you are a Negress now and there are no misses and mistresses in that race. If you were a little older I would call you 'aunty;' if you were a little older still I would call you 'mammy;' if very old, 'grandma Eunice.' But as it is, I have to call you plain 'Eunice.' My race would disrespect me if I didn't follow the rule, you know."
"You wretched cur! You yap!" screamed Eunice.
"As this is your first day in the 'nigger' race I won't bother you for calling me out of my name. But let me give you a piece of advice. We white folks like a 'nigger' in his place only, and you find yours quick. And remember that you 'nigger' women don't come in for all that stepping back which we do for white women. We go so far as to burn your kind down here sometimes. As for that brat there, bring him up as a 'nigger' and teach him his place, if you don't want him to see trouble." So saying the young white man turned and walked away, leaving Eunice enraged and amazed at his effrontery.
The refined classes among the whites who would not under any circumstance have wantonly wounded Eunice's sensibilities, had nevertheless issued the decree of caste and the grosser ones among them were to execute it, and Eunice was tasting the gall that the unrefined pour out daily for a whole race to drink.
Typical of that class that enjoyed seeing the Negroes writhing under their wounded sensibilities, this young man had craved the honor of being the first to make Eunice taste the bitterness of her new lot in life.
Eunice and her son now proceeded to the street car. A number of white women boarded the car just in front of her and the conductor politely helped them on. When her time came to step up,he caught hold of her arm to assist her. When a glance at her face told him who she was, he (having seen her picture in the newspapers, and learned the result of the trial) quickly turned her loose so that she fell off the car, badly spraining her ankle.
Eunice did not understand his action and looked up at him inquiringly. The contemptuous look upon his face explained it all. With her sprained ankle she hobbled on the car and took a seat near the rear door. A number of half-grown white boys were on the rear platform and felt inclined to contribute their share of discomfort to the newly discovered Negro woman. They hummed over and over again the "rag time" song. "Coon, coon, coon, I wish my color would fade!"
When Eunice and her son arrived at her hotel she alighted from the car unaided, and painfully journeyed to her room, which was being thoroughly overhauled by an employee.
"Where—— where—— is my room?" asked Eunice, haltingly, fearing that she had somehow made a mistake.
"You haven't any in this hotel," was the gruff response.
"But I have; I am in the wrong room, perhaps," said Eunice.
"No, you have been in the wrong race. You are a 'nigger' and we don't run a 'nigger' hotel. Your things are piled up in the alley, and youwill please get out of the building as quickly as you can."
Eunice's mind now ran back to the occasion of her first stay in that hotel, recalled how royally she was treated then and contrasted it with the treatment she was now receiving. Stepping to the mirror she gazed at herself saying:
"What leprosy, what loathsome disease has befallen me that everybody now spurns me. One cruel little word—Negro—has converted fawning into frowning and a paradise into hell."
Taking her boy by the hand she started out of the building as hurriedly as her sprained ankle would permit.
"Back doors for 'niggers,'" shouted the employee, as he saw that Eunice had started toward the front entrance.
Rage mounted the throne in Eunice's heart and she turned towards her tormentor. She parted her lips and the oaths of stern men were upon the eve of bursting forth, but she repressed them and was soon out of the hotel. The railroad station was not far away and she preferred walking to submitting to the indignities that might attend riding on the cars. Appearing at the railroad ticket office she applied for a berth in a sleeper. Her face was known there, too, and she was told that all the berths were taken. A white woman going on the same train was the next to apply for a berth and was given her choice of anumber. Eunice noticed the discrimination and returned to the clerk.
"You must have been mistaken as to the train I am to travel on, for the lady that has just left secured a berth on that train after I had failed," said Eunice pleadingly, for she desired the seclusion of a sleeping car for her mournful journey home.
"You belong to a voteless race and I can't give you a berth," said the ticket agent.
"What has voting to do with my getting a suitable place to ride on a train?" said Eunice, tears of vexation coming into her eyes.
"Everything," said the young man more sympathetically.
"You see it is this way," he continued. "The Governor of this state, who sprang from a class of whites, who never had much love for the Negro, happened to take a sleeper that was occupied by a few Negroes who did not conduct themselves properly. Though the great body of Negroes who were able and disposed to occupy berths were genteel and well-behaved, this governor, to properly bolster his dignity resolved upon a course that would work discomfort for thousands. He threatened to recommend to the legislature that a law be passed demanding separate sleeping cars for the two races unless Negroes were kept out of sleepers. We lose less by keeping Negroes out than we would by being compelled to operate two sets of cars. If you people had voting power and could stand by us we could stand by you. It is a matter of business with us."
"You are discriminating against me without the warrant of law and are subject to a suit," said Eunice.
"The case will be tried by a white jury and a verdict will be rendered against us. We will be required to pay the cost of the court and to hand over to you one cent!"
Taking her little boy by the hand, Eunice slowly turned and walked away while the tears rolled down her cheeks. She did so much crave the darkness and seclusion of a berth, where she could take an inventory of the new world into which she had come, but there was no escape from the lighted coach occupied by Negroes. Getting on the train she took a seat in the section of the coach set apart for Negroes. The Negro porter thinking she had made a mistake took her into a coach for whites.
"Take that woman back. She is no white woman," bawled out one of the passengers, who had in his hands an afternoon paper containing a likeness of Eunice and an account of the trial.
The puzzled porter turned to Eunice and said, "Are you a—are you a—" He was afraid to ask the woman as to whether she was a Negro fearing she might be a white woman and would have him killed for the insult; and he was equally afraid to ask her as to whether she was a white woman, fearing that if she was white she would resent a question that seemed to imply any sort of resemblance to a Negro. It occurred to him to say:
"This coach is for whites and the one you came out of is for Negroes."
Saying this he left hurriedly, leaving her to select the coach in which she was to ride. Eunice groped her way back to the section of the coach set apart for Negroes.
Earl had heard by means of the long distance telephone of the outcome of the trial, and desiring that the first meeting with Eunice after the sad experience should be private, he had preferred sending to the railway station for her, to going himself. He was now in his library when Eunice and her son reached the house. As Eunice pushed open the library door and stood facing her husband she stretched forth her hands and said in tones that pierced Earl's heart:
"Doomed! Doomed! Assigned to membership in the Negro race! Made heir to all the contempt of the world. Doomed! Doomed!"
Earl stood with folded arms and a heart whose emotions cannot be portrayed, and looked at the picture of woe before him, his beautiful wife frantic and despairing and his little son already feeling in his youthful spirit the all pervading gloom that creeps through the Negro world.
"Be not dismayed, Eunice, dear! I am not at the end of my resources. I shall yet burst a bomb in this Southland," said Earl.
Eunice rushed to Earl clutched his arms and looked up wildly into his eyes. "Earl, dear Earl! Tell me! Tell me quickly and tell the truth! Is there, can there be any hope for the Negro here or elsewhere?"
Earl did not answer at once. He looked steadily into her eyes and realized that he was in the immediate presence of a soul about to make a final plunge into the dark, dark abyss of despair. It was to him a holy presence and he could not lie!
"Eunice, dear, there is hope. Slowly, but surely the world is working its way to a basis of justice for all," said Earl.
"My boy! Is there hope for him?"
"The hope of sublime battling, dear," said Earl.
"Is that all there is for my boy? No hope of reward. Only battle! battle!" asked Eunice.
"Grant me a favor, Eunice. I know what that look in your face means. I see that you are thinking of leaving me, and of taking my boy and your boy with you. You are planning suicide," said Earl.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Eunice, in the uncanny tones of madness. "You guess well. Come with us," she said, casting a look in the direction of a drawer where she knew the pistol to be.
"Grant me this favor, Eunice. Don't die. Spare my boy. Live and let my boy live a little while longer. I have several more lines of attack. If they fail then we can all go."
Eunice whirled around the room gayly and said with childish glee, "You will then die with us, will you? Ha! ha! ha!" A terrible fear stole over Earl as he watched her peculiar behavior.
"Live! Ha! ha! ha! 'Nigger,' 'darkey,' 'coon'single —live! Yes, I'll live! I'll live! Whee—poo—poo—wheep!" screamed Eunice, now dashing wildly about the room. She had gone mad.
At the earliest moment practicable Earl bore the raving Eunice out of the Southland, carried her to a sanitarium in a northern city. Giving the physician in charge a history of the case and allowing him time to study it, Earl awaited the verdict as to Eunice's chances of recovery.
"Mr. Bluefield, to be absolutely frank with you, I am compelled to say that, in my opinion, your wife's case is an incurable one. The one specific cause of her mental breakdown is the Southern situation which has borne tremendously upon her. That whole region of country is affected by a sort of sociological hysteria and we physicians are expecting more and more pathological manifestations as a result of the strain upon the people.
"Only one thing could cure your wife and that is the reversal of the conditions that havewrought upon her mind. She has lucid moments, but whenever her mind forcibly recurs to the Southern situation she again plunges into the gulf of despair. If in these lucid moments you could place before her a ladder of hope, I am of the opinion that a cure would be effected. That is equivalent to saying, I fear, that the case is incurable, for I can see no way out of the Southern tangle."
Such were the awful words addressed to Earl Bluefield by the physician in charge of the sanitarium when Earl called to learn of him his opinion concerning Eunice's case.
Earl walked forth from the sanitarium and journeyed hurriedly to the southern border of the city. When the houses of the city were well at his back and he had an unobstructed view to the south, he paused and, holding his right hand aloft, he said:
"Hear, O spirit world, if such there be, that, in the days to come, you may witness how faithfully Earl Bluefield, Humanity's Ishmaelite, kept his word. Non-existent was I until the whim of a Southern white man, trampling upon the alleged sacred canons of his race, called me into being and endowed me with the spirit of his kind. In the race into which I was thrust, I sought to manifest my martial spirit, but met with no adequate response from men grooved in the ways of peace. I found me a wife with spirit akin to mine, and like myself a victim of the bloods.The two of us withdrew from the active affairs of men, and from our own heath looked out upon the land of our birth, in the very which we had been made aliens. And now we have been dragged from our happy seclusion and gibbeted.
"And thinkest thou, O Southland, that the last has been heard of me? Ha! Ha! For fear that thou mayest deceive thyself thus, hear the oath of Earl the Ishmaelite:
"By the wrenched chords of the heart of a boy spurned by a contemning father; by the double shame of a mother wickedly wooed and despised in the one breath; by the patience and optimism of the blood of my black forbears; by the energy and persistence of my grant of blood from Europe—by all these mighty tokens, I make oath that this nation shall rest neither day nor night until this shadow is lifted from my soul. And I further make oath, O despisers of the offerings of my higher self, that I shall meet your every fresh wound with face the more uplifted because thereof, and to better meet all that you have to hand out to me, I shall keep company with the Spirit that makes nerve food of disasters and ascension chariots of whirlwinds."
Decorative Chapter End.
IIn a room of a hotel in the city in which the sanitarium having charge of Eunice was located, Earl Bluefield sat upon a sofa, his hands, with the fingers tightly interlaced, resting between his knees, his head and shoulders bent forward. The intense, haggard look upon his face told plainly of the painful meditation in which he was engaged.
Owing to Earl's peculiar status in the world, Eunice, beloved as a wife, was far more to him than a wife. He looked upon himself as a sort of exotic in the non-resisting Negro race and considered himself a special object of scorn on the part of the white people of the South, who seemed to him to resent his near approach unto them in blood, and to mistrusthiskind more than all other elements in Negro life. In the absence, therefore, of a perfect bond of racial sympathy anywhere, Eunice became to him his world as well as his wife, and no more horrible suggestion could be made than that he should go through life apart from her. Here indeed had been a marriage—the welding of two into one.
Earl was not brooding as one who had hopelessly lost his all, but was plotting as one who would save his all. The task of the knight of old upon whom was the burden of rescuing some lovely maiden from imprisonment in a seemingly impregnable fortress, was but child's play compared to the task before Earl, who must scale the walls of the castle of despair and batter down doors that laughed at the feebleness of steel if he would claim Eunice for his own again. He was face to face with the dreadful fact that nothing but the solution of the long standing race problem of America could release to him the one so dear to his heart, so essential to his existence.
As Earl sat canvassing the terrible plight in which he found himself, his mind ran the whole gamut of panaceas that had been proposed for a solution.
His own martial scheme of his earlier, unmarried days passed in review before his mind, but failed to appeal to him as it did in the days of yore. So far as he himself was concerned he would have welcomed a death in a glorious cause as an honorable release from the ranks of the advocates of universal justice, who, to his impatient spirit seemed to be marking time in the face of an aggressive foe. But death for himself would not rescue Eunice!
His mind recurred to the impression that seemed to prevail in some quarters that thesolution of the problem mainly hinged upon giving industrial training to the Negro masses.
"That," said he to himself, "will solve a large part of the Negro's side of the problem, but how great an army of carpenters can hammer the spirit of repression out of those who hold that the eternal repression of the Negro is the nation's only safeguard? What worker in iron can fashion a key that will open the door to that world of higher activities, the world of moral and spiritual forces which alonewoosEunice's spirit and mine? What welder of steel can beat into one the discordant soul forces of willing Negroes and unwilling whites, the really pivotal point of the problem? Really pressing is the need of industrial training for our people, but my peculiar case calls for something that must come from Lincoln the emancipator rather than from Lincoln the rail-splitter."
Earl next thought of Ensal's proposed campaign of education which had been vigorously carried on by Tiara and he said: "It is one thing to produce a Niagara and another thing to harness it. O for a means of harnessing all the righteous sentiment in America in favor of the ideals of the Constitution." Thus, on and on Earl soliloquized, groping for the light.
He stretched out upon the sofa and sought to refresh his tired brain with a few moments of sleep, but sleep refused to visit him. Suddenly he leaped from the sofa and said:
"I have it! I have it! Eunice shall be free."
He now began to make hurried preparations for a trip South. While he is thus engaged we shall divulge to the reader the process of reasoning that at last led him to what he conceived to be daylight.
"Two things must be done," argued Earl within himself. "Repression in the South must die and men with broader visions in that section must take charge of affairs. This is an age of freedom and an age of local self-government. Freedom must obtain in the South, and largely through some agency found or developed therein. The most effective way of killing repression is to make it kill itself and out of the soil nurtured by its carcass will spring a just order of things.
"I will lure repression to its death and then find my force within the South that will lead the South into nobler ways."
Understanding this much of Earl's new plan we are now prepared to follow him and intelligently watch developments.
The scene now shifts from the North to the South.
Fully conscious of the stupendous character of his undertaking, Earl walked slowly up the walk leading to the office of the Governor of M——, a Southern state. He was steadying himself for the coming effort.
When shown to the governor's office he said:
"This is the governor of the state of M——, I believe."
"They say that such is the case," responded the governor, smilingly.
"I am just from the North and am making a tour of the South. I am travelingincognitoand would like to be known to you as John Blue. As I shall broach only matters of common public interest in case you honor me with an interview, I shall be pleased to have you excuse me from making myself further known to you in a personal way," said Earl, with great affability.
The governor was captured at once by Earl's suave manner and actually fancied that some Northerner of exceeding great note was paying him a visit.
"Well, I am glad to see you—glad to see you. The more you men of the North see our Southern 'niggers' the more you will sympathize with us," said the governor.
"Do you think that either we Northerners or you Southerners get anything like an adequate view of the Negro?" asked Earl Bluefield, alias John Blue.
"Why not?" asked the governor.
"Well, you Southern people don't mix with them socially, practically never enter their best homes, and would be amazed, I am told, if you really knew of the high order of their development socially. It is said that you call them 'niggers,' that your children speak of them as such, that you often speak harshly of them in your home circles, that many of your men are not as refined as they might be when they are dealing with Negro women, and that for these reasons the better grade of Negroes are leaving your domestic service, so that your observation of the Negro is more and more centered upon the type that does not represent the race at its best."
"I had never thought of that. We do call them 'niggers.' I have a lot of trouble in keeping a cook. I wonder if that is the reason. Well, well, who would have thought that there was anything about a 'nigger' that Southerners would have to be told by a Northerner," remarked the governor, winding up with a loud guffaw.
"As for the tourist class of Northerners," resumed John Blue, "and Northerners residing in the South, they see only the rougher side of Negro life, much as do you Southerners. The Northern missionaries whose duties place them in touch with the best and worst that there is in Negro life have the real rounded view of the situation."
The governor's affability now disappeared. Said he:
"Don't praise those mawkish missionaries to me. They are down here educating the heads of 'niggers.' We white folks have got enough heads to run this country."
"Your irritation," said Earl, "paves the way for me to say what I came to say. We Northerners are tired of being estranged from you Southerners. We are becoming a world power and should have a thoroughly united country. Why don't you Southern people begin a campaign of education and let the North know your real mind, so that we won't tread on your corns so often, to use a homely phrase."
"Ha, ha! the North knows my views. They were heralded abroad everywhere and gave me the governorship. I had five planks in my platform and, to match your homely phrase with another one, they took like hot cakes," said the governor.
"Would you object to outlining your platform to me," asked Earl.
"Object? Why I am the boldest man in the South. I don't bite my tongue. Surely you have heard of me," said the governor.
"Yes, I have heard of you," said Earl, "but I did not know but what you had been misrepresented by political enemies."
"Well, you can judge for yourself as to whether I have been misrepresented or not. The five planks of my 'nigger' platform are these," said he.
"First, this is a white man's country.
"Second, one drop of Negro blood in a man's veins makes him a 'nigger.'
We machine men in the South dont want this "nigger" bugaboo put down. Its our war whoop." (258-259.)"We machine men in the South dont want this "nigger" bugaboo put down. Its our war whoop." (258-259.)
"Third, public office, neither federal nor state, was gotten up for a 'nigger' to hold.
"Fourth, all money spent on educating a 'nigger,' except to teach him to work, is a squandering of the public funds.
"Fifth, the outside world be d——d. We will deal with the 'nigger' to suit ourselves.
"I will also tell you confidentially that I am one that don't want the 'nigger' question out of politics. We are living side by side with these 'niggers,' and public agitation helps our people to keep in mind that there is an impassable gulf between the races. Such men as I am would be perfect fools for trying to solve this 'nigger' problem. A crazy man can see that the solving of this problem puts my kind out of business. Thousands of Southern men can whip me out of my boots on any issue outside of abusing the 'nigger.' That's where I can go them one better. Haven't you observed the universal lament that we are not up to the standard in point of statesmanship. The trouble is we ride into our kingdoms so easily. It don't take a genius to persuade a people that you can beat a more tender-hearted man keeping a 'nigger' in his place. We machine men in the South don't want this 'nigger' bugaboo put down. It's our war whoop."
"Aside from the political use to which you put your announced views on the race question, you really believe them, don't you?" asked Earl.
"O yes. I think the good of the world demands that the 'nigger' be kept in his place," replied the governor.
"Now, I am getting to the point," said Earl. "Lincoln once said our country could not always exist half slave and half free. You see he was right. Now a lesser light than Lincoln tells you that the policy of repression must obtain in all our country or none, for the nationalizing spirit is at work, and is sure in time to produce a national unity of some sort. Shall this unity, so far as touches the question of the races, be upon the Northern or Southern basis, is a very live question for you Southerners. Now I suggest that you Southern people make this question a national one."
"How can we raise the issue," asked the governor.
"Easily. You people have been tolerating Negroes in federal positions down here for years. Collectorships of ports, marshalships and numerous positions of honor have all along been held by Negroes. Become tired of this and demand that they be withdrawn. That will be an invitation to the nation to join with you in your policy of repression."
"Good! Good!" said the governor, clapping his hands.
"You can go further. The presidency of our nation is where the copartnership of the states finds conspicuous concrete expression. Demandthat none but a repressionist or a man silent on that question be allowed to occupy that chair."
"Good! Good! Good!" exclaimed the governor.
"Now as to your chances. The race instinct is in the North, but is not cultivated as much as it is in the South. Send your men to the North who are most adroit in their appeals to prejudice and you will find a force there to join you. Then remember you Southerners sprang to arms so gallantly in that skirmish with Spain that you made a fine impression. It was discovered that you had been brave enough not to allow defeat to rankle in your hearts, a really good quality. A more opportune time for you Southern people to take a stand would be hard to conceive," said Earl.
Down came the governor's hand upon his desk with a thud.
"Don't you know I have been thinking that very thing. I have great influence in the councils of my party and I shall see to it that the 'nigger' question is the next national issue," said the governor.
"You will have one little backset," said Earl.
"The man whom you will have to oppose has made fewer Negro appointments than any of his more immediate predecessors and those made have been of a very high order—a thing that could not always be said. Again, he has made it a point to have no Southern adviser save a knownfriend of the best element of the Southern people."
The governor looked wrothy again. "Best element," said he, sneeringly. "He is losing his time fooling with that crowd. All we radicals have to do is to crack our whips and they run to cover."
"That brings us to another point of considerable importance. When the campaign is launched, whose views on the race question shall be in the foreground—the views of the radicals or conservatives in the South," asked Earl.
"The radicals shall occupy the center of the stage, sir. We are tired of these half-way policies!" thundered the governor.
Earl now arose to go.
"You will certainly hear from us radicals as never before in the history of the nation—that is, since we jumped in the saddle and brought on the war," said the governor.
"By jinks, you don't think another war will come on, do you, Mr. Blue?" asked the governor.
"Oh, no; we have had our last war with lead and steel. All of our internal conflicts for the future must be intellectual, it seems," answered John Blue.
"I am glad to hear you say that, for if we got into another tangle I do believe to my soul that these 'niggers' would be a little less quiet than they were before. But for our political alliance with the North we of the South would have to be one of the most truckling of nations. For, whatcould we do to a foreign foe with all these discontented 'niggers' squirming in the fires of race prejudice, like so many worms in hot ashes. You are sure there won't be any physical fighting?" remarked the governor.
"The North would hardly hit you, for you are blood of their blood and they know how utterly helpless you are with an awakened race in your borders thoroughly of the opinion that you are not giving them a semblance of fair treatment," said John Blue.
"I gad, we must bring the North our way. I see that whoever, in this fight of the races, gets the outsider is going to carry the day. We are coming in the next campaign. Look out for us."
The two men bade each other adieu and Earl walked out of the office.
Earl invaded state after state in the South and conferred with the radical leaders wherever he went and found the sentiment everywhere prevailing that the time was ripe for the radical South to pull off its mask and let the world see its real heart.
With an anxious heart Earl watched the forming of the lines of the campaign. Men in all parts of the country, whose only hope of success lay in obtaining the political power in the hands of the radicals, besought them to forego making the Negro question an issue, but they were deaf to all appeals.
The convention dominated by the radicals met, and John Blue, alias Earl Bluefield, was there. When the Anti-Negro plank was read, from his seat in the gallery a mighty cheer rang out that started a wave of enthusiasm unsurpassed in the history of political conventions.
As John Blue stood waving a flag and cheering, his eye swept over that great throng, and he said to himself:
"O bonnie Southland: if you had developed real statesmen among you, men who knew their age, they would be here to tell all these people save myself to be quiet, on the ground that it is indelicate for a corpse to cheer at its own funeral. But your really great men are at home sorrowing over your coming humiliation. This day's work is the beginning of the end. Eunice, the sky brightens!
"Heaven of heavens, I thank thee that thou hast so arranged it that the American people must now say as to whether or not the caste spirit shall be allowed to lay his bloody tentacles on the political life of the whole nation."
Decorative Chapter End.
WWith ceaseless, tireless energy Earl Bluefield went everywhere in the North during the campaign that followed, assailing the political power in control of the South. The heat of his heart warmed his words and his eloquence thrilled the nation.
"How has it happened that an orator of such power has remained so long hidden from the nation's gaze?" was the question everywhere asked.
In an address to Northern labor, which was heralded far and wide, Earl said:
"To those of you who in the sweat of your brow earn your bread, I bring the message that your earning of a livelihood, a very grave matter with you, is affected by the Southern situation."It has been said that the South is freer from labor strikes than any other equal area of territory within the borders of civilization. The weakness of the Negro in the body politic, his lack of means to insure his protection, gives timidity to Negro labor and causes it to be little inclined to organize."The enforced cheapness of Negro labor brings down the price ofall labor, just as a house sinks with its foundation. Lo, the word has already gone forth that the South is the place for capital, that labor is cheap, that there is an absence of social unrest found elsewhere."Read your commercial journals and note how many of the institutions upon which you have depended for a livelihood have been transferred to this land of cheapness and peace, ominous peace. Note how your captains of industry are asseverating that factories in the North must cut wages in order to compete with those that have gone South."Your economists saw in the days preceding civil strife that the workingman of the North could ill afford to compete with slave labor at the South. Permit me to say to you that the half-slave, the political slave, made timid by an environment that tends to crush his spirit and dwarf his energies, is a menace to you, holding the white labor of the South down and affecting you of the North."Again, adverse conditions at the South will drive the Negro to your very door. Some day when you desire to remain away from work to allow your employers leisure to ponder a condition which you desire improved, you will find the Negro there to take your place."Men of the North, mark well my words: You must lend your aid to an adjustment of relations in the South upon an equitable basis or be confronted with the question of the disorganization and readjustment of your own affairs. Stand out against the repressionists of the South, make the whole nation a field of fair play and then we will not have this one disturbing center distributing trouble to all other parts of the nation."
"To those of you who in the sweat of your brow earn your bread, I bring the message that your earning of a livelihood, a very grave matter with you, is affected by the Southern situation.
"It has been said that the South is freer from labor strikes than any other equal area of territory within the borders of civilization. The weakness of the Negro in the body politic, his lack of means to insure his protection, gives timidity to Negro labor and causes it to be little inclined to organize.
"The enforced cheapness of Negro labor brings down the price ofall labor, just as a house sinks with its foundation. Lo, the word has already gone forth that the South is the place for capital, that labor is cheap, that there is an absence of social unrest found elsewhere.
"Read your commercial journals and note how many of the institutions upon which you have depended for a livelihood have been transferred to this land of cheapness and peace, ominous peace. Note how your captains of industry are asseverating that factories in the North must cut wages in order to compete with those that have gone South.
"Your economists saw in the days preceding civil strife that the workingman of the North could ill afford to compete with slave labor at the South. Permit me to say to you that the half-slave, the political slave, made timid by an environment that tends to crush his spirit and dwarf his energies, is a menace to you, holding the white labor of the South down and affecting you of the North.
"Again, adverse conditions at the South will drive the Negro to your very door. Some day when you desire to remain away from work to allow your employers leisure to ponder a condition which you desire improved, you will find the Negro there to take your place.
"Men of the North, mark well my words: You must lend your aid to an adjustment of relations in the South upon an equitable basis or be confronted with the question of the disorganization and readjustment of your own affairs. Stand out against the repressionists of the South, make the whole nation a field of fair play and then we will not have this one disturbing center distributing trouble to all other parts of the nation."
Addressing the business interests of the country, he said:
"Work is the one American word, and as a result great is the monument erected to our industry. Our accumulations are enormous."From time to time questions affecting the whole wealth of the nation must be passed upon by the people. These repressionists have shown that there is no interest so vital but that they will smite it hip and thigh if by so doing they may advance the policy of repression. You are confronted therefore with a power that bids you to become repressionists or stand subject to onslaughts whenever the fancy obtains that a lick at your interests will do their cause good."You cannot commit yourselves to the cause of repression. It taints character. You are great employers of labor. In the mighty problems that are to confront you your spirit will be your most valuable asset. You must keep it pure at all hazards. Nor can your business interests long endure these constant jars from the repressionists. You cannot afford to accept either horn of the dilemma offered you by the repressionists. Your only remedy lies in smiting repression."
"Work is the one American word, and as a result great is the monument erected to our industry. Our accumulations are enormous.
"From time to time questions affecting the whole wealth of the nation must be passed upon by the people. These repressionists have shown that there is no interest so vital but that they will smite it hip and thigh if by so doing they may advance the policy of repression. You are confronted therefore with a power that bids you to become repressionists or stand subject to onslaughts whenever the fancy obtains that a lick at your interests will do their cause good.
"You cannot commit yourselves to the cause of repression. It taints character. You are great employers of labor. In the mighty problems that are to confront you your spirit will be your most valuable asset. You must keep it pure at all hazards. Nor can your business interests long endure these constant jars from the repressionists. You cannot afford to accept either horn of the dilemma offered you by the repressionists. Your only remedy lies in smiting repression."
To the statesmen whose anxious eyes were upon the future of the nation, he said:
"In the days that are now upon us and in the years that are to come there can be no escape, perhaps, from some ills of which the fathers never dreamed, unless a larger grant of power be given unto our national government. However pressing the situation, rely upon it, the repressionists will seek to keepthe nation in swaddling clothes for fear that added power might some day turn its attention to the question of repression."
"In the days that are now upon us and in the years that are to come there can be no escape, perhaps, from some ills of which the fathers never dreamed, unless a larger grant of power be given unto our national government. However pressing the situation, rely upon it, the repressionists will seek to keepthe nation in swaddling clothes for fear that added power might some day turn its attention to the question of repression."
In an address to the whole people, he said:
"A power that would wrong a race, that would in any way restrict human growth, that would not have the nation a fair and open field, is out of tune with heaven, is working at cross purposes with the whole universe, and will carry into an abyss all whom it can mislead."
"A power that would wrong a race, that would in any way restrict human growth, that would not have the nation a fair and open field, is out of tune with heaven, is working at cross purposes with the whole universe, and will carry into an abyss all whom it can mislead."
The Negroes are a people capable of great enthusiasm and ardent attachments. All their fervor was thrown into the campaign. Any vast body of people with deep convictions have the power to greatly impress others. The settled conviction of the Negroes that their very destiny in America hinged, it seemed, upon the outcome of this election, was not without its psychological effect upon the public mind.
The cause championed by Earl marched to a glorious triumph at the polls, but he took no part in the jollification that followed.
"My work is only half done," was the reflection that kept him calm in the presence of the victory for which he had made the full offering of his soul.