_The Two Pathways._
The day wore on, and about dusk Earl returned to Ensal's home, and the
two at once entered upon the consideration of the grave matter that was
to be the subject of their conference.
"Before giving my plan, Ensal, I will present the course of reasoning
that leads me up to the conclusion that it is the one path to pursue,"
began Earl.
"So do," said Ensal.
"The men and women," began Earl, "who moulded the sentiment that led to
our emancipation and enfranchisement, who set in motion the influences
that have tended toward our general uplift, are fast passing away. I am
told that the younger generation now coming into power in the North is
not as enthusiastic over the matter of helping us as were their fathers.
As I see the matter, several influences are at work producing these
changes.
"First: A very natural desire on the part of Northern people to be on
more pleasant terms with their blood relations of the South.
"Second: The moving of whites from the South to the North, where, in
social circles from which Negroes are debarred, they mould sentiment
against the Negro. There are more than one million five hundred thousand
Southern white people in the North.
"Third: Among the Negroes going North there is a shiftless, criminal
element, whose tendency downward is aided by the prejudice against
Negroes in labor circles of the North. This class of Negroes in some
parts of the North almost monopolizes the attention of the criminal
courts and the result is an erroneous opinion with regard to the race as
a whole.
"Fourth: There is a decided drift of Northern capital to the South. The
greater the holdings of the North in the South, the greater the
indisposition of at least that element to have conditions down here
disturbed, I think. I believe that by acting now we shall receive far
more sympathy from the North than we would be likely to get a few years
later."
"Suppose, for the sake of progress in the discussion we concede the
validity of your conclusions. Granting that the present is the time to
act, what would you do?" asked Ensal.
"Let me state first of all what I would not do. I would not attempt an
exodus. The white people of the South would resort to force to prevent
our leaving in a mass. I would not attempt a _general_ uprising. They
have absolute charge of the means of transportation and
intercommunication as well as the control of the necessary equipments
for waging war."
Earl now paused and looked steadily at Ensal, who awaited with almost
breathless anxiety Earl's next words.
"When I was a lad I declaimed the address of Leonidas to his brave
Spartan band, and the idea of a vicarious offering has ever since lain
heavily on my heart.
"In Almaville here I have a picked band of five hundred men who are not
afraid to die. To-night we shall creep upon yonder hill and take charge
of the state capitol. When the city awakes to-morrow morning it will
find itself at our mercy. We also have a force of men which will take
charge of the United States government building. This will serve to make
it a national question.
"When called upon to surrender, we shall issue a proclamation setting
forth our grievances as a race and demanding that they be righted. Of
course, what we shall call for cannot be done at once, and our surrender
will be called for.
"We shall not surrender. Each one of us has solemnly sworn not to come
out of the affair alive, even if we have to commit suicide. Our act will
open the eyes of the American people to the gravity of this question and
they will act. Once in motion I am not afraid of what they will do. I am
not fearful of America awake, but of America asleep.
"Such is my plan. In brief, it is the determination of desperate men to
provoke intervention.
"Look at Cuba. A handful of men stayed in the field and kept up a show
of resistance until our great nation intervened. It is within the power
of the Negro race to bring about intervention at any time that it is
willing to pay the price. I have found the men and recruited them from
the ranks of the plain people who were already ripe for action for the
following reasons:
"Labor circles here are just now very bitter toward the city government
because of its course toward Negro roustabouts. The white men in charge
of the boats that ply the river, fed their Negro hands poorly and made
the whole crew eat with spoons out of one pan. They were afforded no
sleeping accommodations, being forced to sleep on the bare floor. If a
piece of freight was accidentally dropped overboard the Negro who did it
was forced to jump into the water after it or be clubbed to death. Some
roustabouts who were forced to jump overboard to recover freight lost
their lives. These things have influenced the Negroes to abhor
roustabout work. But the police force, in the interest of the boatmen,
pounced down upon the Negroes and forced them to do the work, and this
course is practically urged by one of our leading daily newspapers. In
this condition of affairs, the laboring Negro sees a sign of a return to
the conditions of slavery, and he is alarmed.
"If in a city of light such as is Almaville this spirit obtains, it
won't be long, they feel, before the Negro laborers of the South will be
firmly in the grasp of a new form of slavery. They are also alarmed at
the clamor of leading newspapers for a vagrancy law which will be
invoked in times when the Negroes refrain from labor in the hope of
advancing their pay. The presence in our ranks of the labor element
representing the Negro masses will give striking evidence of the effect
things are having upon all classes of Negroes, welding them together.
"Now, Ensal, you have my whole story. This is to be the most sublime
affair in the whole history of our race. Honor yourself, my friend, by
joining our ranks."
Earl now ceased.
"Earl," began Ensal, slowly, earnestly, "do you know the Anglo-Saxon
race and particularly that brand found in the South? Provoke the
passions of that race, arouse the dormant but ever-present fear of
secret plottings for a general uprising, and you will inaugurate the
wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women and children. Satan hearing
of what is going on, will resign his post as King of Hell, will broaden
his title and move up to sit as Emperor of the South.
"No, no, no, Earl. Dark, dark is the night, but let us not mistake the
glow of the 'jack-o'-lantern' leading to a bog for the gleam of the
morning star ushering in the day."
Ensal ceased speaking and the two men looked at each other in silence.
"Do you regard yourself as having finished?" asked Earl after a few
seconds of silence.
"Sir," he continued, "if in this hour when I am strangled with the ashes
of Bud and Foresta you feed me with a negation----" He did not finish
the sentence.
"I understand you, Earl. I must offset your proposition with a better
one. Foreseeing that you would demand this of me, I have prepared
myself," said Ensal.
Going to his desk he procured a rather bulky document. Ensal turned the
manuscript over and over. In it he had cast all of his soul. Upon it he
was relying for the amelioration of conditions to such an extent that
his race might be saved from being goaded on to an unequal and
disastrous conflict. He hoped that its efficacy would be so self-evident
that Earl might stay the hand that threatened the South and the nation
with another awful convulsion. No wonder that his voice was charged with
deep emotion as he read as follows:
* * * * *
_"To the People of the United States of America:_
"The Anglo-Saxon race is a race of the colder regions and there
evolved those qualities, physical, mental and temperamental,
which constitute its greatness. A large section of the race
has left the habitat and environments in which and because of
which it grew to greatness, and in the southern part of the
United States finds itself confronted with the problem of
maintaining in warmer climes those elements of a greatness
hitherto found only in the colder regions.
"The race in these warmer regions took firm hold of the
doctrine of a foil, a something thrust between itself and the
sapping influences of weather, sun and soil. The Negro was
pressed into service as that foil. He was to stand in the open
and bear the brunt of nature's hammering, while the
Anglo-Saxon, under the shade of tree or on cool veranda, sought
to keep pace with his brother of the more invigorating clime,
counting immunity from the assaults of nature and superior
opportunities for reflection as factors vital to him in the
unequal race that he was to run.
"Not only was this foil deemed necessary to the maintenance of
the intellectual life of the South, but to its commercial well
being as well; for the white man was regarded as
constitutionally unable to furnish the quality of physical
service necessary to extract from the earth sufficient fruitage
to have the South hold her own commercially.
"The wealth of the South, because of a deep seated conviction
as to the absolute need of a foil for the white race in warmer
climes, because of the hardiness of the Negro's frame, his
docility, his habit of cheerfulness when at work, his largely
uncomplaining nature, his conception that labor conditions are
fixed, his individualism leading to ineptness in
combining--these qualities the wealth of the South regards as
ideal for the services of capital, and Negro labor is much
preferred to that of chronically discontented, aspiring and
combining whites.
"The capitalist influence would have the Negro treated
humanely, would give him industrial, moral and religious
training, and would have him enjoy the protection of the law
that he might continue in the South, working in contentment and
with efficiency in the lower forms of labor.
"But this element desires that the Negro play the part of the
foil and accept this as mainly his mission in America. It has
scant sympathy with the college professor and the political
agitator that would set the race to dreaming very largely of
higher things. The element, therefore, that is most desirous of
retaining the Negro population and seeks to make the race
satisfied with its present habitat is for the very reason
leading to that course, thoroughly opposed to making a
speciality of developing _all_ there is in the Negro, so that
the development that this element stands for is assuredly one
sided.
"Opposed to the element that is half friendly to the Negro
because of his superior qualities as a foil and commercial
asset, are the white industrial rivals of the Negro, whose
animosity is whetted by their conscious inferiority in matters
physical to this son of the tropics, who is more nearly at home
under southern sky than are the children of the colder regions.
"The industrial rivals of the Negro, led on by those who would
exploit race prejudices for their profit and those who feel
that grave danger lurks in a mixed civilization, keep the baser
passions of the people so inflamed that such horrible outrages
take a place that the future often seems overshadowed with a
cloud dark, portentous and riftless.
"The two elements thus far mentioned, the half-friends of the
capitalist class and the rancorous industrial rivals of the
Negro, are opposed to each other on the question of the Negro's
leaving the South, the former opposing and the latter favoring
his elimination, but they are one in insisting that the Negro
must be restricted in his aspirations. The question has another
complication and a third element is to be reckoned with.
"There is a vein of idealism running through our country that
would hold the American people to the thought that the United
States has a world wide mission. It is the dream of this class
that shackles, whether physical, political or spiritual, shall
fall from every man the world around.
"This class says to the capitalist class of the South: 'Our
ideals will suffer if we permit you to have political serfs,
however well fed they may be.' To the class that would oppress
the Negro it says, 'The patient suffering and material service
of him whom you buffet entitles him in his own right to a home
in this country, and here of all places justice shall be his
portion.' This class has opened Northern institutions to them,
and training has produced a large and aggressive army of able
young Negroes enraptured with the expressed ideals of the
republic.
"When it is sought by idealists to make the position of the
American Negro square with the constitution, the capitalist
class of the South, which fancies that it sees the sudden loss
of the foil, and the rivals of the Negro in the labor world
combine to oppose the programme looking to the political uplift
of the Negro. As the Negro in the groove ('in his place') has
the self-interest of the capitalist class on his side, while,
aspiring to be as others are, he finds his erstwhile friends
and chronic enemies forming a cordon to prevent his rise, it
has been suggested that political advancement be made a
secondary consideration.
"In view of the powerful forces which we find arrayed against a
programme looking to the political advancement of the Negro we
can understand the desire of the American people that it be
made clear that the political needs of the Negro are vital to
the improvement of present conditions. We shall therefore
proceed to show how intimately the political question is
inwrought in the whole situation.
"After the last word has been said in favor of the capitalist
notion of race elevation, it is still found to contain the
wonderfully fecund germ of repression. To sustain a notion from
generation to generation that the Negro should be denied
participation in the political life of his nation necessitates
an atmosphere charged with the spirit of repression, a
voracious guest, whose appetite calls for food other than the
dainties set before him.
"The making of official life in the South independent of Negro
sentiment was evidently intended to cause white men to feel
free to act according to their own instincts, undeterred by
calculations as to the possible effects of their course on the
attitude of the Negro toward them.
"With repression the order of the day, and the process of the
survival of the fittest operating along this plane, that man
who best exemplifies the repressive faculty will survive in the
political warfare and thus will be brought to the front the
element out of touch with the broadening influences of the
age, whose vision is yet bounded by the narrow horizon of race.
"The administration of the government, then, inevitably falls
into the hands of the less refined and a contemned race of an
alien blood is handed over to them to be governed absolutely.
As might be expected under a system that picks its rougher
spirits for rulership, the governing force is often worse in
its attitude toward Negroes than are the great body of whites.
Instead therefore of the government being the guide, piloting
the people to broader conceptions, the governing power often
sets in motion brutalizing tendencies that eventually sweep
down and affect the people.
"Local sentiment has been invoked to hold in check the wrathful
outpourings of United States senators, legislatures have held
in check rampant governors, and cities have cried out against
the acts of legislatures imposing repressive measures not
warranted by local conditions, things that signify that
repression sends to the front men whose tendency is to lower
rather than advance civilization.
"It is generally conceded that the drift of the Negro
population of the South toward the cities is due to the lack of
police protection in the rural districts. In the city
policeman, then, we have an opportunity to study the output of
the system of repression at its highest level. Policemen are
often the most unbearable of tyrants, arresting Negroes upon
the most flimsy charges, and refusing to tolerate a word of
explanation. It is actually a capital offense for a Negro to
run from a policeman, however trivial the charge upon which he
has been arrested.
"In Almaville, which represents the South at its highest point
of civilization, policemen have wantonly shot to death Negro
after Negro for seeking to elude arrest.
"The following article which we reproduce from one of America's
most reputable journals, will speak for itself.
"'How lightly the wanton killing of a Negro has come to be
regarded in some Southern communities is brought out by an
incident of the week at Memphis, which hardly needs comment. An
inoffensive Negro was hawking chickens about the street,
when ----, who was not in uniform at the time, jumped to the
conclusion that the chickens had been stolen, and arrested the
man. While he went to put on his uniform he left his prisoner
in custody of a nearby grocer, rightly named ----, to whom he
handed his pistol, with the offhand injunction, 'If he tries to
get away from you, kill him.' ----'s assertion that the Negro
made a break for liberty is disputed by the testimony of
bystanders, but at all events he fired on the Negro, wounding
him so severely that he died the next morning. 'Well, you got
him, didn't you?' said ---- on his return. 'If I didn't, I
almost,' answered ---- with a smile. The policeman's only
statement in palliation of the unprovoked killing was that the
deputy to whom he delegated his authority had 'taken his
instructions literally.' The most shocking feature of the
affair is that ---- has not been arrested, and the policeman is
apparently to continue on his beat. The 'Commercial-Appeal' may
well exclaim in bitterness, 'Life in this community is cheap;
the life of a Negro is so valueless that it is freely taken
without fear of future punishment in this world.'
"The question may be asked as to whether there are provisions
for redress against police outrages. There are courts and
commissions that may be appealed to, but two considerations
render these institutions of slight value to Negroes. In the
first place the sentiment obtains that the evidence of a Negro
is not to count as much as that of a white man. With this much
the start the policeman has still another advantage. The policy
of repression has fostered the idea that it is all right for a
white man to commit perjury in cases where there is a contest
between a white man and a Negro. Witness the manner in which
election commissioners have often been chosen because of their
known willingness to swear falsely as to the contents of ballot
boxes.
"So, with little sentiment against perjury when a Negro is
involved and the extra weight attached to the word of a white
man as against that of a Negro, the wrongs of the Negro more
often than otherwise go absolutely unavenged.
"Public utilities are likewise administered by white men who
often maltreat Negroes. In Almaville a street car conductor was
sentenced to two years in the penitentiary for the killing of
an inoffensive Negro who was asking him for correct change and
at whom, according to his own sworn statement, he shot 'to see
him run.'
"In this same city a Negro woman was kicked off of a street car
by the conductor for pulling through mistake the cord that
registered fares instead of the one that signalled for the
motorman to stop.
"For this same offense a Negro in Memphis was shot in the back
four times and killed by the conductor, who was allowed to make
his escape.
"Many good white people of the South will ask 'If this state of
terror exists among our Negro population, how does it happen
that it has not impressed itself more forcibly upon the public
mind?' Largely because the affected people are voiceless and
because they grow weary of invoking the aid of courts and
commissions that somehow find their way clear to sustain the
side holding membership in the race to which they belong. The
Negroes, therefore, meet in groups and exchange accounts of
outrages and bitterly sneer when they read in the white
newspapers of the South accounts of the ideal relations of the
two races.
"The claim of some of the white people of the South that the
Negro needs no power in his own hands to insure a proper regard
for his interests ought not to be tolerated for a moment in
view of all that has happened since the whites have had
exclusive charge of the southern governments.
"It has long been a contention of the Anglo-Saxon race that the
people should retain power to protect themselves against
possible indifference, incompetence or outright meanness on the
part of public officials, and if Anglo-Saxons refuse to commit
their welfare unreservedly into the hands of fellow
Anglo-Saxons, it seems clear that it is placing too great a
strain upon human nature to expect ideal results when an alien
race is involved. Not only does repression bear such fruit as
we have indicated, but it also bears heavily upon the repressed
in other directions.
"All history shows that a race stands in need of great men, in
need of the contributions of their superior powers, and the
inspiration that their names will carry from generation to
generation.
"Grappling with the affairs of state affords unique
opportunities for growth, while the honor of having served the
state operates as a magnifying glass enlarging the
inspirational force of individuals so honored. Thus a race
having the privilege of committing great trusts to its members
draws as a dividend men of enlarged powers and names which will
inspire. These influences reapplied to the needs of the state
serve mightily to pull the people forward.
"Again, to fix a limit to the development of a race is to run
counter to the forces of evolution which are indisposed to
recognize barriers of any kind. The human mind revolts at a
'_ne plus ultra_.' The Great Unknown has hid himself in the
heart of things, and yet the fainting soul of man lingers
forever at the barred door of His palace in a sort of
rebellious worship, determined to learn of Deity even the
forbidden things.
"The human mind is yet human when encased in a Negro body and
if this mind chafes at limitations seemingly imposed by eternal
forces, it will not submit to limitations arranged by finite
creatures.
"We have no doubt arrived at the point in this discussion where
it is in order to suggest a remedy for these ills. The
offerings of the humane class of Southern white people who
would like to settle the whole question upon the basis of the
development of the Negro race along restricted lines, must,
because of the danger that lurks in the principle of
repression, be rejected as totally inadequate. Above all
things, the government must go out of the business of
repression, must cease tagging the Negro as an outcast among
his fellows. The men who administer affairs must be made
amenable to the sentiment of the whole body politic and not
simply that portion represented by the white citizenship.
"One says: 'The nation felt all this and granted to the Negroes
political power.' Explain to us those largely writ words
'Reconstruction Governments.'
"Right gladly do we respond to the task assigned.
"One whom the nation knows as perhaps the foremost living
Southerner, who has acquired the art of speaking upon this
whole matter in a way that seems to beget at least a respectful
hearing everywhere, says: 'Few reasonable men now charge the
Negroes at large with more than ignorance and an invincible
faculty for being worked on.'
"To this we make reply, the overturning of slavery in the South
was revolutionary and not evolutionary. There was no spiritual
cataclysm to correspond with the political one. He who on one
day ruled _over_ the Negro was found spiritually unprepared to
rule _with_ him on the succeeding day.
"When, therefore, the Negroes were approached by two
sets of men, the one set, composed of the former ruling class
of the South, equipped morally and intellectually for good
government, but wrong at heart upon the great question of human
rights, the other composed largely of carpet baggers, scalawags
and bad administrators, but true to the principle of equality
before the law, it ought not to be surprising that a race fresh
from the galling yoke of slavery should choose the set that
would look after their liberties.
"This, we feel, fully explains the ills of reconstruction, and
those that lament that they were thrust aside from leadership,
should further lament that they were evidently not far enough
away from the ruling of a race by a race to have charge of the
momentous experiment of the joint rulership of races. The real
blame for the unfortunate state of affairs falls, perhaps, upon
those crushers of free speech in the South who, prior to the
Civil War, allowed not the preaching of the doctrine of human
rights which would have furnished men of the right temper and
proper vision to take charge of the new order of things.
"But we gained much from those times that must not be lost
sight of. We gained our racial awakening, the upward impulse.
This was a supreme need of our country. For, what pen can set
forth what would have been the outcome of a festering carcass
of a dead race within our borders.
"The ballot put into the hands of the gloom enshrouded Negro
sent a thrill of hope into his very bone and marrow, and the
sense of responsibility and the beckoning of the high destiny
of citizenship in a great republic begot such a fever of
progress in the race that the problem is now that of dealing
with the aspirations of the race rather than the more awful
problem of trying to avoid the contaminating odor of a race
dead to higher appeals, sinking and pulling the nation with it.
"And finally upon the question of reconstruction we find that
perpetual disbarment is not visited upon the people of the
mightiest city of the new world, because it has from time to
time made mistakes and put bad men to the fore.
"Moreover, be it remembered that the Negro of to-day is not
restricted to the choice of yesterday. Good men and true
abound in both races in the South, who are now fully equipped
to operate a truly democratic government.
"People of America: We were wrested by you from the savage
wilds and thrown into your mould. Our bodies have been fitted
to your climes, our spirits have been put in tune with yours.
We love your institutions, and if your flag could speak, it
would tell you that it has no fear of the dust when entrusted
to our sable hands.
"The great burdens of your future need the cheer that we can
bring, and your labors in the tropics now dimly foreshadowed,
may put a premium on what we can yield. By the token of our
patriotism and in sight of our willingness to yield all the
blood or brawn or brain necessary for the advancement of our
common country, we simply beg that you cast not away your
ideals, that you do not unsettle the foundations of your
democracy when you come to deal with us.
"Grant unto us equality of citizenship. Fix your standard for a
man! If you choose, plant the foot of the ladder in a fiery
test and engirdle each round with a forest of thorns. Do this
and more, if your civilization and the highest needs of the
unborn world require it. But when, through the fire and up the
path of thorns, we climb where others climb, hurl us not back
because of a color given us from above. Let one test be unto
all men. Let the strong arm of the nation for its own good and
for the ultimate good of humanity insist upon the observance of
this principle wherever Old Glory floats. Let this be the
guiding star of your policy toward us. This grave question
settled, the vast army of Negro leaders absorbed in the
momentous work of adjusting this external problem, will be
free to turn undivided attention to the curing of those ills
that are gnawing at the vitals of the race.
"Those most interested in the internal development of the race
can render the cause so dear to their hearts no greater service
than by facilitating the adjustment of the outer relation.
"The campaign, then, is one that concerns not only the
political forces of the nation, but the moral forces as well,
since the pressing of this great wrong upon the hearts of an
inoffensive, patient and aspiring people tends to their moral
undoing, not only by the evil passions engendered, but also, as
has been pointed out, by the withdrawing of so much of the
attention of the race from internal development to the
absorbing, exacting and, in some respects, narrowing task of
battling against an alien aggression.
"From the depths of our dark night we cry unto you to save us
from the oppression inherent in the present situation and clear
the way for our higher aspirations.
"In behalf of the Negroes of the United States of America,
"ENSAL ELLWOOD."
Ensal finished the document, folded it carefully and laid it upon his
desk.
"Now Earl," he said, "let us print millions of this address and see to
it that a copy thereof gets into every American home. Furthermore, let
us see to it that it is translated into the various languages of the
civilized world that the whole thought of the human race may be
influenced in our direction. Earl, our cause is just and we must learn
to plead it acceptably. That is our problem. Eschew your plan and join
hands with me."
Earl was silent for a few moments and then said:
"This is all very good, Ensal, but it needs a supplement. Charles
Sumner's oratory and Mrs. Stowe's affecting portraiture of poor old
Uncle Tom were not sufficient of themselves to move the nation. There
had to be a John Brown and a Harper's Ferry. Preserve that paper and
send it forth. The blood of Earl Bluefield and his followers shed upon
the hill crowning Almaville will serve as an exclamation point to what
you have said in that paper," was Earl's comment.
Earl now arose to go. Ensal stood up facing him.
"Ensal, clasp my hand in farewell," said Earl feelingly.
"Earl, knowing the mission upon which you go to-night, criminal in its
utter folly, I would not for my life put my hand in yours," responded
Ensal.
A flush of anger overspread Earl's face, his lip quivered and he was
upon the eve of uttering some biting remark. He suppressed his anger,
however, and departed, determined upon making his offering of blood.
True American that he was, Ensal was determined that the offering should
be the output of brains, rather than of veins.