"Ruth, I am surprised at you! What did you mean by publishing that
affidavit?" asked Stover the next morning after her affidavit appeared
in the paper.
"I meant just what my statement said," she replied.
"Didn't you know that you were doing a very wrong thing?"
"I just did it for fun. I did not think that it might injure the Ku
Klux Klan."
"I don't care how much it injured the Ku Klux Klan; it deserves all the
criticism it gets. What I dislike about it is that it causes comment
about one of my employees and subjects my friend Springer to ridicule."
"Oh," she said, laughing, "I'm not shedding any tears over Springer.
He should be a little more accurate in his reports. If he had reported
the incident accurately and without prejudice he would not have been
embarrassed by the exposure."
"Don't let anything like that happen again around here."
"I promise you I'll not."
Rastus tried to avoid Ruth. Next to Springer he was the worst beat man
in town. When he saw Ruth enter one door of the president's office he
would go out the other door. If he was in the banking room near the
part of the room where she entered he immediately had business over on
the other side of the room. It was almost noon when she met him face
to face in one of the doors. "How are you, Rastus?" she said and then
added, "Haven't been visited by any more Kluxers, have you?"
"No'em, I ain't. You all thought you had a good joke on me, but I ain't
sech an ignoranimus as what you all might think. I spicioned all the
time that it was you, Miss Babcock."
"If you suspected all the time that it was I, why did you become so
frightened?"
"Me sca'ed! Well, I guess not. When you all stepped out from behind
that elevator I says to myself that's Miss Babcock tryin' to play a
joke on me and I says I'll have to hep her to have a little fun, so I
jest 'tended like I'se sca'ed, jest to please you, Miss Ruth."
"Is that so, Rastus?"
"'Deed, it is. I'se a good spo't, I is."
"I thank you very much for the pleasure afforded me," she said,
laughing.
"Yas, 'em, you's welcome, but I ain't gwine to give you sech pleasure
no mo'."
"That's all right, Rastus. I consider that you have made your full
contribution."
It was the middle of the afternoon. Ruth had not been busy for a
half-hour. She had been reading a novel. It was a story of a girl
who was about to marry a man who was in every respect a cultured
gentleman--intelligent and refined in thought, dignified in manner,
and of magnetic personality. A few weeks before the date set for the
wedding the girl received a shock. She was informed that the man whom
she was about to marry was one-sixteenth negro. She was furious and
could scarcely restrain her hands from clutching the throat of her
informant. "It's a lie, it's a lie!" she shouted. She was sure that the
story had been invented by a jealous rival who wished to torment her.
The next time she was with her lover she could not but think of this.
She thought that she saw a slight olive tint to the skin, that there
were dark circles at the base of his finger nails and that his nose was
slightly flat and nostrils a little broad. Surely she imagined these
things. She continued to worry until the man persuaded her to tell him
the cause of her distress. The man admitted that it was the truth and
offered to release her from the engagement. The author then shows a
great conflict in the mind of the girl between social standards and
love. In the end love triumphed and the girl married the man with the
strain of colored blood in his veins.
When Ruth reached this point in the story she threw the book violently
on the floor and exclaimed, "Rot, rot, that makes me sick!"
"That's treating the book rough." She turned and saw Pearl Gardner, one
of the bookkeepers, standing in the door.
"Come in, Pearl, and have a chair."
"I wasn't busy and thought I would come in and see what you were doing.
I arrived just in time to see the demonstration. I didn't know that you
ever struck fire like that, ha, ha, ha."
"Now, you quit laughing at me. I got so disgusted at that story."
"What was it?"
"A girl was in love with a man, and just before their marriage she
learned that he was part negro."
"Did she give him up?"
"No, that's the disgusting part of it. She married him."
"He must have been pretty white if she didn't know it."
"He was only a sixteenth negro."
"I don't blame her then if she loved him."
"What! You don't mean to say that you would have had her marry a man
with negro blood in his veins, do you?"
"Why not, if she loved him? Isn't love the greatest thing in the world?"
"Yes, love that is rightly directed, is the greatest thing in the
world; but love that violates the great racial instincts, that runs
counter to the experience of mankind, that does violence to the
highest social standards--is love run wild and does not lead to the
greatest good."
"I don't see that it would do any harm if the man was so white that the
girl did not know it when she fell in love with him."
"It would violate the racial instincts within her as well as the
social standards of the race. The white race, even if it desired to
do so, could not absorb the negro race in the United States through
intermarriage. There is an inevitable reversion to type. If you had
a race seven-eighths white and one-eighth negro you would have a
race that was essentially negro in its physical structure and racial
tendencies."
"Ruth, I believe you must be getting ready to become a lecturer on
the race question. Of course, I don't believe intermarriage would be
a good thing for the country, but I don't think we should try to keep
the negro down. I heard my father say last night that one objection he
had to the Ku Klux Klan is that one of its purposes is to oppress the
negro."
"The Klan advocates the supremacy of the white race. I do not
understand that that means to oppress anyone that is a member of
another race. I recently read a good article on 'The Necessity of
Keeping the White Race Supreme in the Affairs of the World.' Anyone
of average intelligence who would read that article would certainly
believe that there is need of the white race presenting a solid
front against the rising tide of the dark skinned races. This article
stated that in insisting on the maintenance of white supremacy the
Klan is insisting on the preservation and propagation of the ideals
and institutions that experience has shown to be the best for the
race. Democracy is born of the white race. It has found its greatest
advocates among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It has reached its greatest
development in America. It was spread to Europe, dethroning kings, and
is now making inroads into the caste system of Asia. The great mass of
the dark skinned races are subservient to kings and emperors and are of
such a temperament that autocratic governments have flourished among
them, consequently we cannot trust our democratic institutions in their
hands. He states that white men should rule in democracies because they
have shown the greater capacity to govern themselves and establish
democratic institutions. The American home is a home that is based on
the love of one man for one woman and requires a freedom of choice in
marriage which is seldom found among the dark races.
"Christianity was born of the white race and promoted by them, and
while it is destined to become universal, yet if the institutions which
support it should be controlled by pagan people the source of the
supply of missionaries and Christian teachings would be destroyed.
"The white race has aims and ideals that are different from the
other races, as we believe, superior; and when the Klan declares for
white supremacy it declares for the preservation of those ideals and
institutions that have been found the most helpful in the development
of life. That these should survive will, in the end, prove advantageous
to all races.
"Pearl, he made plain to me that the Klan is not wanting to oppress
inferior races but to help them to a higher development; but in order
to do that the white race must protect itself. If I can find that
article I would like to have you read it. I am not sure whether I kept
the paper or not."
"Don't go to any trouble to find it. I'm not much interested in such
questions. I'd rather read a wild-west story or a good love story. Say,
Ruth, what do you think! Last night I was out riding with Mr. Golter
and he said that he had a letter from his sister that had just returned
from New York, and she said that they are beginning to wear the skirts
longer. Of course if they are wearing them longer in New York it will
only be a short time until they wear them longer here."
"I wouldn't object to their being a little longer, but I hope they
won't go back to the long skirts that swept the streets," Ruth remarked.
"I hope they won't get them down to the heels, but if it gets to be
the style what can you do but wear them? One mustn't be out of style."
"One does not need to wear the extreme styles in order to keep from
looking odd. You see I do not wear them to my knees, neither do I
intend to wear them sweeping the streets. I am going to dress, so far
as possible, so that I will not appear odd nor be uncomfortable either
in mind or body."
"I don't agree with you. You'd just as well be dead as out of style.
Say, girlie, I had some ride last night. We rode about fifty miles and
did some real speeding. Mr. Golter's a real man and has a real car. You
know he's been wanting to go with me for some time."
"No, I did not know that," said Ruth.
"Well, he has, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to believe that I
wanted to go with him. Last night I consented and found him better
company than I had expected. Today I had to go to his desk for some
records while he was out of the room and I saw a letter which he was
writing to his sister. I saw my name, and I didn't do a thing but look.
Oh, boy, he was sure writing some nice things about me. I think that's
a pretty good way to find out what a fellow thinks of you, don't you?"
"You might find out that way if you were sure he hadn't left it there
on purpose for you to see."
"Oh, I'm sure he didn't intend for me to see it."
Mr. Stover called Ruth to take dictation, and the conversation came to
an abrupt close.
That evening as Ruth was leaving the bank Golter stopped her and asked
the privilege of taking her to dinner and to the opera. She made as
polite an excuse as possible. While she was conversing with him, Pearl
Gardner was watching them closely, endeavoring to catch every word.