Very soon after the feast was ended, Elliott saw John Holmes and a
party of men coming toward him.
To a casual reader of the human countenance, it would be evident at a
first glance that Holmes was a man of no small worldly knowledge, and
as he now appeared with his companions one could discern that this
superiority was recognized by them and that he held a certain position
of authority, in fact that he was a man accustomed to rule rather than
be ruled.
As he approached Elliott, he addressed him with a pleased smile,
saying: “I am glad to see you here, Mr. Harding. Maybe you can help us
out of a difficulty.”
“In what way?” asked Elliott, surprised.
“My political opponent was to have been here and we were to briefly
address the people this afternoon, but, so far, he has failed to put
in an appearance. The toiling folk have come here to-day, even laying
aside important work in some instances, to hear a ‘speaking,’ and
unless they hear some sort of an address (they are not particular about
the subject) it will be hard to bring them together again when we need
them more.
“I, as a representative of the committee, request you to lend us a
helping hand. It is generally desired that you be the orator upon this
occasion.”
“What! address this gathering offhand and wholly unprepared? It would
blight my prospects forever with them,” laughed Elliott.
“On the other hand, it would give you an opportunity for a wider
acquaintance and perhaps elect you to the first office to which you may
yet aspire. Come! I will take no excuse,” persisted Holmes, while his
companions seconded his insistence.
After considerable pressing, Elliott was escorted to the platform, from
which the musicians had moved. Without delay Holmes stepped to the
front and in a loud, clear voice which hushed the crowd, said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor of introducing Mr. Elliott
Harding, who will speak in place of Mr. Feland, that gentleman, for
some reason or other, having failed to put in an appearance.”
Amid a storm of cheers, Elliott arose, straightening his eloquent
shoulders as he came forward. His blonde face was full of eager life
when he began.
“Ladies and gentlemen: The unexpected compliment paid me by your
committee has given me the pleasure of addressing you to-day. I accept
the invitation the more gladly inasmuch as it gives me the opportunity
of telling you that my heart, linked to the South by birth, has
retained its old love in spite of absence and distance, and brings me
back to my own place with a fonder and, if possible, a greater and
nobler pride in this Southland of yours and mine. And, it _is_ a land
to be proud of. More magnificent a country God has never made. It has
seen the fierce harrowing of war. Gazing through the past years my
fancy sees the ruin that has confronted the home-coming soldier--ashes
instead of homes, burnt stubble instead of fences, the slaves on
whose labor he had long depended for the cultivation of his fertile
fields, with their bonds cast off, meeting him as freemen. Without
money, provisions or even the ordinary implements of husbandry, he at
once began the toilsome task of repairing his fallen fortunes. Having
converted his sword into a plowshare, his spear into a pruning hook, he
lost no time, but manfully set to work to restore his lost estate, and
bring a measure of comfort to the dear ones deprived of their former
luxuries.
“So it is to the soldier of the ‘Lost Cause’ that all honor and praise
must be given for the present prosperity of the land. And it becomes us
as heirs of his sacrifice and of the fruits of his toil, to lend our
every effort to the full garnering of the harvest.
“As the giant West has sprung up from the sap of the East, so must
the South rise up by strength drawn from the soil of the North. What
the South needs to-day more than any other one thing is an influx
of intelligent laborers from the North. It needs its sturdy folk of
industrious habit, economy and indomitable energy; it needs a more
profitable system of agriculture. Accustomed as that people is to
economy, to frugality and to forcing existence out of an unwilling
soil, if only they could be induced to come here in sufficient numbers,
the country would soon blossom into mellow prosperity. And, my friends,
I want to see them coming--coming with their capital to aid us in
developing the inexhaustible mineral resources of our mines, the timber
of our forests, to build our mills and rear our infant manufactures to
the full stature of lusty manhood. Our future with all its limitless
possibilities--this future which is to warm the great breast of the
business world toward us, this future which shall shower upon us the
fullness of earth--is all with you.
“Therefore, with such a vista of promise opening before our gaze, ill
would it become us to fail in our duty toward ourselves, toward our
country and toward Him who giveth all. Thus it befits us to lend every
effort to the furtherance of this, our future salvation. To those upon
whose coming so much depends, every inducement must be offered. And
be it remembered that capital seeks its home in sections wherein life
and prosperity enjoy the greatest security under the law. This is a
conclusion founded on the great law of caution, upon which intelligent
capital is planted and reared. It becomes necessary, then, to ask
ourselves seriously, ‘Are we making every effort to solidify peace and
order by the protection of life and the supreme establishment of law?’
“I need not answer this question. Circumstances have done so for me.
The electric wire is still hot from flashing to the furtherest corner
of our Nation, in all its revolting details, news of the recent awful
crime in our sister state.
“I am well aware that in touching upon this point I am wounding the
sensibilities of a people who have been shadowed by personal injury
and embittered by a natural race prejudice; but I feel that I can
speak the more boldly because I touch the matter not as an alien whose
sympathies are foreign and whose theories are theoretical chimeras,
but as a southerner--one whose interest is the stronger because he
is a southerner. My audience may refuse to grant the justice of my
argument, but it must admit the truth of the situation I outline.
Whichever way we turn the tremendous problem of the lynching evil
stares us in the face. It baits us, it defies us, it shames us.
“Think of it! More than one thousand human lives forfeited to Judge
Lynch form the South’s record for the past ten years. What a horrible
record! It seems almost incredible that such lawlessness can exist
in communities supposed to be civilized. Would to God it were but an
evil dream and that I could to-day assure the world that this terrible
condition is but the unfounded imagining of a nightmared mind.
“Lynching is a peculiarly revolting form of murder, and to tolerate
it is to pave the way for anarchy and barbarism. It cannot be
truthfully denied that one of the most potent factors militating
against the progress of this country is this frequent resort to illegal
execution, and before we can realize the full benefits of your natural
inheritance, your laws--our laws--must be impartially enforced,
property must be protected, and life sacredly guarded by rigid legal
enforcement, backed by an elevated public conception of duty.
“It is no greater crime for one man to seize a brother man and take his
life than it is for a lawless multitude to do the same act. The first,
if there be any difference, is less criminal than the latter for it,
at least often has the merit of individual courage and the plea for
revenge on the ground of personal injury. But when a man is deprived of
his liberty by incarceration in the jail and thus shorn of his power
of self protection, it is the acme of dishonor and cowardice to wrest
him from the grasp of the law and deprive him of his life upon evidence
that possibly might not convict him before a jury.
“I do not wish to be understood as saying that brave and good men do
not sometimes, under strong excitement, participate in this outrage
against human rights and organized society, for it is a fact that such
rebellions are not infrequently led by the most prominent citizens,
and, from this very fact, it is the more to be deplored.
“My friends, have you never thought to what this practice may lead?
Has the frequency of mob violence no alarming indications for you?
Directed, as it more often is, against our negro population, instead of
making better citizens of the depraved and deterring them from crime,
it has a tendency to cultivate a race prejudice and stir up the worst
of human passions. It is inculcating a disregard of law because it
ignores that greatest principle of freedom--that every man is to be
considered innocent until proven to be guilty by competent testimony.
“Judge Lynch is the enemy of law and strikes at the very foundation
of order and civil government. His rule is causing large classes to
feel that the law of the land affords them no protection. The courts
furnish an adequate remedy for every wrong. One legal death on the
scaffold has a more salutary effect than a score of mob executions.
The former teaches a proper dread of offended law, leaves no unhealing
wounds in the hearts of the living, stirs up no revengeful impulses,
creates no feuds and causes no retaliatory murders. What a field of
home mission stretches before us! We owe it to the South to remove this
blot on our good name. Let us hasten the day when Judge Lynch shall be
spoken of with a shudder, as a hideous memory.
“This pitiful people, our former slaves, if instructed by intelligent
ministers and teachers, might be delivered from the cramped mind,
freed from the brutalized spirit which causes these crimes among us.
They are naturally a religious people and this principle, which seems
to be strong within them, under the guidance of an earnest enlightened
ministry, might prove to be the key to the race problem find open up a
social and political reformation, unequalled in modern times.
“Already the negro race is doing much for its own advancement and good.
To-day there are thirty-five thousand negro teachers in the elementary
schools of the South. Six hundred ministers of the gospel have been
educated in their own theological halls. They own and edit more than
two hundred newspapers. They have equipped and maintain more than three
hundred lawyers and four hundred doctors and have accumulated property
which is estimated at more than two hundred and fifty millions. I note
this fact with pleasure. It makes them better citizens by holding a
stake in their community. Let us show our appreciation of what they
have already done by helping them to do more.”