THE MAN OF THE HOUR
The editor prepared to launch his campaign with the utmost care. He invited
the Executive Committee of his party to meet in his office. The leaders
were excited. They knew Norton too well to doubt that he had something big
to suggest. Some of them came from distant sections of the state, three
hundred miles away, to hear his plans.
He faced the distinguished group of leaders calmly, but every man present
felt the deep undercurrent of excitement beneath his words.
"With your cooperation, gentlemen," he began, "we are going to sweep the
state this time by an overwhelming majority----"
"That's the way to talk!" the Chairman shouted.
"Four years ago," he went on, "we were defeated for the first time since
the overthrow of the negro government under the Reconstruction regime. This
defeat was brought about by a division of the whites under the Socialistic
program of the Farmers' Alliance. Gradually the black man has forced
himself into power under the new regime. Our farmers only wished his votes
to accomplish their plans and have no use for him as an officeholder. The
rank and file of the white wing, therefore, of the allied party in power,
are ripe for revolt if the Negro is made an issue."
The Committee cheered.
"I propose to make the Negro the only issue of this campaign. There will be
no half-way measures, no puling hesitation, no weakness, and it will be a
fight to the death in the open. The day for secret organizations has gone
in Southern history. There is no Black League to justify a reorganization
of the Klan. But the new Black League has a far more powerful organization.
Its mask is now philanthropy, not patriotism. Its weapon is the lure of
gold, not the flash of Federal bayonets. They will fight to divide the
white race on this vital issue.
"Here is our danger. It is real. It is serious. But we must meet it. There
is but one way, and that is to conduct a campaign of such enthusiasm, of
such daring and revolutionary violence if need be, that the little henchmen
and sycophants of the Dispensers of the National Poor Funds will be awed
into silence.
"The leadership of such a campaign will be a dangerous one. I offer you my
services without conditions. I ask nothing for myself. I will accept no
honors. I offer you my time, my money, my paper, my life if need be!"
The leaders rose as one man, grasped Norton's hand, and placed him in
command.
No inkling of even the outlines of his radical program was allowed to leak
out until the hour of the meeting of the party convention. The delegates
were waiting anxiously for the voice of a leader who would sound the note
of victory.
And when the platform was read to the convention declaring in simple, bold
words that the time had come for the South to undo the crime of the
Fifteenth Amendment, disfranchise the Negro and restore to the Nation the
basis of white civilization, a sudden cheer like a peal of thunder swept
the crowd, followed by the roar of a storm. It died away at last in waves
of excited comment, rose again and swelled and rose higher and higher until
the old wooden building trembled.
Again and again such assemblies had declared in vague terms for "White
Supremacy." Campaign after campaign which followed the blight of negro rule
twenty years before had been fought and won on this issue. But no man or
party had dared to whisper what "White Supremacy" really meant. There was
no fog about this platform. For the first time in the history of the party
it said exactly what was meant in so many words.
Thoughtful men had long been weary of platitudes on this subject. The Negro
had grown enormously in wealth, in numbers and in social power in the past
two decades. As a full-fledged citizen in a Democracy he was a constant
menace to society. Here, for the first time, was the announcement of a
definite program. It was revolutionary. It meant the revision of the
constitution of the Union and a challenge to the negro race, and all his
sentimental allies in the Republic for a fight to a finish.
The effect of its bare reading was electric. The moment the Chairman tried
to lift his voice the cheers were renewed. The hearts of the people had
been suddenly thrilled by a great ideal. No matter whether it meant success
or failure, no matter whether it meant fame or oblivion for the man who
proposed it, every intelligent delegate in that hall knew instinctively
that a great mind had spoken a bold principle that must win in the end if
the Republic live.
Norton rose at last to advocate its adoption as the one issue of the
campaign, and again pandemonium broke loose--now they knew that he had
written it! They suspected it from the first. Instantly his name was on a
thousand lips in a shout that rent the air.
He stood with his tall figure drawn to its full height, his face unearthly
pale, wreathed in its heavy shock of iron-gray hair and waited, without
recognizing the tumult, until the last shout had died away.
His speech was one of passionate and fierce appeal--the voice of the
revolutionist who had boldly thrown off the mask and called his followers
to battle.
Yet through it all, the big unspoken thing behind his words was the magic
that really swayed his hearers. They felt that what he said was great, but
that he could say something greater if he would. As he had matured in years
he had developed this reserved power. All who came in personal touch with
the man felt it instinctively with his first word. An audience, with its
simpler collective intelligence, felt it overwhelmingly. Yet if he had
dared reveal to this crowd the ideas seething in his brain behind the
simple but bold political proposition, he could not have carried them with
him. They were not ready for it. He knew that to merely take the ballot
from the negro and allow him to remain in physical touch with the white
race was no solution of the problem. But he was wise enough to know that
but one step could be taken at a time in a great movement to separate
millions of blacks from the entanglements of the life of two hundred years.
His platform expressed what he believed could be accomplished, and the
convention at the conclusion of his eloquent speech adopted it by
acclamation amid a scene of wild enthusiasm.
He refused all office, except the position of Chairman of the Executive
Committee without pay, and left the hall the complete master of the
politics of his party.
Little did he dream in this hour of triumph the grim tragedy the day's work
had prepared in his own life.