WORSE THAN DEATH.
The astounding fact brought to light in our foregoing chapter, the
successful substitution of Horace Christian, a white man, for a Negro,
John Wysong, would not, perhaps, have been so easy of accomplishment, if
its sole reliance had been the likeness which Lanier had created and the
circumstances already set forth. There were other factors that
contributed to the success of the scheme, which factors we shall now
mention in order that so remarkable an occurrence may be the more fully
understood.
As a result of the Civil war, four million Negroes who had not been
permitted individual self-management or family management, who had been
rigorously prevented from developing and using collective wisdom--four
million illiterate Negroes of this description were practically given
control of State Governments that called for a high degree of
self-mastery on the part of the units of the governing force; that
demanded ability to legislate in a manner that could command the respect
of the collective wisdom of an antagonistic group, rich in examples of
exalted statesmanship.
The outcome of the situation was a wedding between Thomas Jefferson and
Charles Darwin, the truism of the household thus formed being, "All men
are created equal, but the fittest survive." In order to dislodge their
former field hands who were sitting in the seats formerly occupied by
Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun, the more scrupulous among the
whites were allowed to take back seats, while the less scrupulous
resorted to violence and fraud to restore the government to the hands of
its former rulers, a _result_ well pleasing to all of them.
It can readily be seen that conditions were propitious for the exercise
of talents not anywhere, in normal times, considered as desirable. With
the highest needs of a community apparently calling for lawlessness and
knavery; with virtue stating that she would be forever destroyed without
the protection of vice--under such conditions, in some sections of the
South, the reins of government fell into the hands of evil men and the
taint of party politics affected everything that these men touched.
In this period of transition even the judiciary was sometimes
honeycombed with politics. The same blighting shadow cast itself over
the prison system where appointees were selected with regard to their
"political pull." This state of affairs will account to you for the
latitude allowed to the successful politician, Lanier, a product of his
times, in his dealing with the condemned Negro, John Wysong.
Another factor in rendering the substitution so successful, was as
follows: Under the system of slavery, the whites, being interested in
the Negroes from many points of view, habitually scrutinized their
features and were adepts at distinguishing one Negro from another. When
freedom came, the necessity for close inspection passed away. The
altered demeanor of the former slave begat a species of contempt in the
former master. Thus, while self-interest under slavery led the white
man's eyes to the Negro, contempt for what he regarded as insolence led
his eyes away from him after the coming of freedom. The white woman who
coined the phrase, "All niggers look alike to me," is but an
illustration of what is here set forth.
Inasmuch as that the white people generally were indisposed to give
close scrutiny to Negro countenances and were consequently deficient in
ability to readily distinguish them, Lanier, knowing these things, felt
confident of carrying out his plan of substituting Horace Christian for
John Wysong.
There was one other thing that he had to fear, but the situation
contained a remedy for that, he thought. He realized that Christian upon
finding himself on the way to the gallows, would seek to inspire in the
minds of the jail officials, a doubt as to his being the proper victim.
But Lanier knew that the populace would regard it as a mere ruse to gain
time and would take the prisoner and hang him forth-with, should the
officials hesitate.
Due to the foregoing circumstances, Lanier's jail delivery was eminently
successful. He had at last redeemed his pledge to Erma and had executed
his vow to mete out punishment to Horace Christian. But his work was not
yet complete. He had to make some disposition of John Wysong. His first
step was to remove John as far as possible from the scene of the crime,
and, in keeping with this desire, he and John Wysong took a train for
Florida the same night of the jail delivery.
Arriving at a city in the central part of Florida, Lanier repaired to a
hotel, carrying John Wysong with him as a servant, under an assumed
name. He went to the room assigned to him, accompanied by John. Lanier
lighted a cigar, took a seat near a table on which he rested his crossed
legs. This was a favorite attitude with him when endeavoring to solve a
peculiarly knotty problem.
"I have a miniature race problem on my hands," was his first reflection.
"What must be done with John Wysong?" With that as a starting point his
thoughts ran as follows:
"John Wysong has taken human life. There was no personal ill will
between him and his victim. He regarded the Master Workman as the
embodiment of a principle that narrowed his horizon; that turned his
face from the hope of prosperity in the direction of starvation. His
attack was directed at the principle and not the human being embodying
it. This much in explanation of his crime. His error lay in
appropriating to his own use the very principle from the effects of
which he believed himself to be suffering. On account of the color of
his skin and the attendant delimitations begotten thereby, he felt that
other avenues for redress were closed and that he must have recourse to
revolution.
"In view of all the circumstances surrounding the murder, I feel called
upon to do full justice to society and yet exercise clemency in the case
of this youth, holding in especial view the fact that he regarded the
act as committed in self-defense."
"John," said Lanier to the former, who was sitting in a corner of the
room, "I have saved you from the gallows, yet you must suffer in a
manner commensurate with your offense. The penalty which I am to affix
must affect your whole life. The murderous instinct is not a part of
your being. It is merely an accretion that has come to you because of
your environments which you were too feeble to alter. You are not fit
for the rigors of civilized life in America. The pace is too swift for
you. I decree your banishment from civilization and require you to spend
the remainder of your days in Africa, a punishment not lacking in
severity to one who has had a taste of civilization. To Africa you shall
go."
The look of terror that overspread John's face at this announcement
could not have been greater had Lanier decreed that he was to be burned
alive at the stake within the next five minutes. His agony was so
apparent and intense that Lanier was touched.
He said, "John, you do not seem to like my verdict."
"I shall do what you say," said John, in tones of utter despair,
dropping his head upon his chest.
"Strange! strange! strange! I thought that the one point of cheer in my
verdict would be love of his fatherland," mused Lanier, who had now
arisen and was gazing upon the picture of woe before him. "But love of
the fatherland is all gone, all gone. His love is for a soil where he
must run an unequal race and where divers persecutions and injustices
must necessarily befall him," thought Lanier, as he continued to gaze
upon John. Aloud he said, "Well, John, what would be more to your
liking?"
A ray of hope shot through John's darkened soul, and with a face lighted
up with joyous expectancy, he cried, "Arrange it so that I can go to the
penitentiary for a long, long term of years. I do not wish to leave this
country. I must not put an ocean between me and Erma."
"Ah," replied Lanier, "but you must never see Erma again. She does not
know of your escape from the gallows nor the method thereof, and because
of this latter fact you and I both had better beware. The dear girl is
so deuced conscientious."
"Just let me stay in this country! Send me to prison for as long a term
of years as you will."
"How can you manage that?" inquired Lanier.
"Manage it!" exclaimed John, "That's so, you have never been a Negro.
Why, it is the easiest thing imaginable for a Negro to get into the
penitentiary."
"Well, John, you shall have your way. Change your name. Never allude to
your past life. When and how shall you start?"
"To-night," was John's prompt reply.
That night John was caught by a policeman while in a feigned attempt at
burglarizing a store. He was arraigned, duly tried, convicted, and
sentenced to ten years in the Florida penitentiary. He was taken to the
city not far away, where there was what is known as the "Stockade." Here
he found three hundred Negro men, women, boys and girls chained
together, with an iron ring around each neck and a pick around the ankle
of each. John was added to the gang. They were awaiting the convict
"auction day."
The day came and capitalists from all over the South poured into the
city to bid on the lot of convicts. A syndicate that operated turpentine
forests in Florida was the highest bidder and the convicts were turned
over to it. They were marched down to the train and crowded into cattle
cars and borne into the swamps of the turpentine establishments. They
were put in charge of white bosses, who had been selected because of
their known cruelty, on the hypothesis that it took such characters to
keep in subjection a colony of Negro convicts.
Necessarily a series of hardships followed, but amid all, John was
happy, for he was not in Africa and was in the same land with Erma.
Notwithstanding Lanier's prohibition, he intended seeing his sister
again, feeling assured that it could not possibly result in any harm to
any of the parties concerned. Sustained by this hope he witnessed and
endured all manner of hardships. He saw women of his race forced to
labor side by side with men hardened in crime. With these same hardened
criminals the small boys and girls, present in the convict camp for
their first offenses, had to labor. The Negro women were sometimes the
victims of outrages committed by their white bosses. Illegitimate
offsprings born in prison were taken possession of and doomed to
perpetual slavery.
Men, women and children slept together like a herd of cattle, as many as
sixty being crowded into a room eighteen feet square, with a ceiling
seven feet high, there being no ventilation whatever. After hard days'
work the convicts had to cook their own food, fat bacon and corn bread,
on small fires made on the ground. A downpour of rain would not induce
the bosses to allow the convicts to quit work and seek shelter. Slight
offenses were punished by brutal whippings; and one aged Negro, in the
prison for stealing food for a starving family, was beaten until he
died; beaten because he expressed an opinion as to the decency of the
conduct of one white boss toward a Negro woman, his niece, in the
penitentiary as accessory to his crime.
Whenever showers of rain drenched the entire lot of convicts they did
not have changing garments, but had to wear and even sleep in their wet
clothing until they dried upon them. When the few small houses were
filled to their utmost capacities, a tent was spread and all fresh
comers were assigned to sleep beneath this on the bare ground. If some
convict, more adroit than his fellows, made his escape, the bloodhounds
would soon be on his trail and ere long would have their fangs buried in
his quivering flesh.
Filth abounded on every hand, vermin covered everything in the convict
quarters, and sanitation was a thing unheard of. Disease walked boldly
into their midst and bade Death mow down with his scythe twenty out of
each hundred, this being the proportion of those who died.[1]
Consumption took up its abode in John's bosom and began to eat away his
life. John dwelt amid all these sickening, these blood-curdling horrors
with death gnawing at his own vitals. But through it all, a smile of joy
was ever upon his face, hope was alive within his bosom. The thought
that he might one day see Erma again was his sun that beat back the
shades of eternal night that were seeking to engulf the vital spark left
within him. How incomplete would have been the soul of man, how
powerless to cope with this mysterious thing which we call life, were it
not that its soil is never impervious to the growth of that fragrant
flower, which sends pleasing odors even into the nostrils of the dying,
Hope! immortal Hope!
[Footnote 1: It would be nothing short of a crime against humanity for
an author to allow his imagination to create such a picture as is here
drawn, unless the portraiture was true to life. In simple justice to
himself, the writer cites as his authority the July, 1899, issue of
"_The Missionary Review of the World_."]