The campaign for white supremacy was dragging. Carteret had set out, in
the columns of the Morning Chronicle, all the reasons why this movement,
inaugurated by the three men who had met, six months before, at the
office of the Chronicle, should be supported by the white public. Negro
citizenship was a grotesque farce--Sambo and Dinah raised from the
kitchen to the cabinet were a spectacle to make the gods laugh. The laws
by which it had been sought to put the negroes on a level with the
whites must be swept away in theory, as they had failed in fact. If it
were impossible, without a further education of public opinion, to
secure the repeal of the fifteenth amendment, it was at least the solemn
duty of the state to endeavor, through its own constitution, to escape
from the domination of a weak and incompetent electorate and confine the
negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed
him.
In spite of the force and intelligence with which Carteret had expressed
these and similar views, they had not met the immediate response
anticipated. There were thoughtful men, willing to let well enough
alone, who saw no necessity for such a movement. They believed that
peace, prosperity, and popular education offered a surer remedy for
social ills than the reopening of issues supposed to have been settled.
There were timid men who shrank from civic strife. There were busy men,
who had something else to do. There were a few fair men, prepared to
admit, privately, that a class constituting half to two thirds of the
population were fairly entitled to some representation in the law-making
bodies. Perhaps there might have been found, somewhere in the state, a
single white man ready to concede that all men were entitled to equal
rights before the law.
That there were some white men who had learned little and forgotten
nothing goes without saying, for knowledge and wisdom are not
impartially distributed among even the most favored race. There were
ignorant and vicious negroes, and they had a monopoly of neither
ignorance nor crime, for there were prosperous negroes and
poverty-stricken whites. Until Carteret and his committee began their
baleful campaign the people of the state were living in peace and
harmony. The anti-negro legislation in more southern states, with large
negro majorities, had awakened scarcely an echo in this state, with a
population two thirds white. Even the triumph of the Fusion party had
not been regarded as a race issue. It remained for Carteret and his
friends to discover, with inspiration from whatever supernatural source
the discriminating reader may elect, that the darker race, docile by
instinct, humble by training, patiently waiting upon its as yet
uncertain destiny, was an incubus, a corpse chained to the body politic,
and that the negro vote was a source of danger to the state, no matter
how cast or by whom directed.
To discuss means for counteracting this apathy, a meeting of the "Big
Three," as they had begun to designate themselves jocularly, was held at
the office of the "Morning Chronicle," on the next day but one after
little Dodie's fortunate escape from the knife.
"It seems," said General Belmont, opening the discussion, "as though we
had undertaken more than we can carry through. It is clear that we must
reckon on opposition, both at home and abroad. If we are to hope for
success, we must extend the lines of our campaign. The North, as well as
our own people, must be convinced that we have right upon our side. We
are conscious of the purity of our motives, but we should avoid even the
appearance of evil."
McBane was tapping the floor impatiently with his foot during this
harangue.
"I don't see the use," he interrupted, "of so much beating about the
bush. We may as well be honest about this thing. We are going to put the
niggers down because we want to, and think we can; so why waste our time
in mere pretense? I'm no hypocrite myself,--if I want a thing I take it,
provided I'm strong enough."
"My dear captain," resumed the general, with biting suavity, "your
frankness does you credit,--'an honest man's the noblest work of
God,'--but we cannot carry on politics in these degenerate times without
a certain amount of diplomacy. In the good old days when your father was
alive, and perhaps nowadays in the discipline of convicts, direct and
simple methods might be safely resorted to; but this is a modern age,
and in dealing with so fundamental a right as the suffrage we must
profess a decent regard for the opinions of even that misguided portion
of mankind which may not agree with us. This is the age of crowds, and
we must have the crowd with us." The captain flushed at the allusion
to his father's calling, at which he took more offense than at the
mention of his own. He knew perfectly well that these old aristocrats,
while reaping the profits of slavery, had despised the instruments by
which they were attained--the poor-white overseer only less than the
black slave. McBane was rich; he lived in Wellington, but he had never
been invited to the home of either General Belmont or Major Carteret,
nor asked to join the club of which they were members. His face,
therefore, wore a distinct scowl, and his single eye glowed ominously.
He would help these fellows carry the state for white supremacy, and
then he would have his innings,--he would have more to say than they
dreamed, as to who should fill the offices under the new deal. Men of no
better birth or breeding than he had represented Southern states in
Congress since the war. Why should he not run for governor,
representative, whatever he chose? He had money enough to buy out half a
dozen of these broken-down aristocrats, and money was all-powerful.
"You see, captain," the general went on, looking McBane smilingly and
unflinchingly in the eye, "we need white immigration--we need Northern
capital. 'A good name is better than great riches,' and we must prove
our cause a righteous one."
"We must be armed at all points," added Carteret, "and prepared for
defense as well as for attack,--we must make our campaign a national
one."
"For instance," resumed the general, "you, Carteret, represent the
Associated Press. Through your hands passes all the news of the state.
What more powerful medium for the propagation of an idea? The man who
would govern a nation by writing its songs was a blethering idiot beside
the fellow who can edit its news dispatches. The negroes are playing
into our hands,--every crime that one of them commits is reported by us.
With the latitude they have had in this state they are growing more
impudent and self-assertive every day. A yellow demagogue in New York
made a speech only a few days ago, in which he deliberately, and in cold
blood, advised negroes to defend themselves to the death when attacked
by white people! I remember well the time when it was death for a negro
to strike a white man."
"It's death now, if he strikes the right one," interjected McBane,
restored to better humor by this mention of a congenial subject.
The general smiled a fine smile. He had heard the story of how McBane
had lost his other eye.
"The local negro paper is quite outspoken, too," continued the general,
"if not impudent. We must keep track of that; it may furnish us some
good campaign material."
"Yes," returned Carteret, "we must see to that. I threw a copy into the
waste-basket this morning, without looking at it. Here it is now!"