A WOMAN AROUSED.
Morlene fully realized the gravity as well as the delicacy of the situation
that confronted her. A murder was being planned, the intended victim being
an innocent man and one for whom she entertained the greatest possible
respect; while the man chosen to strike the fatal blow was none other than
her own husband. Her first impulse was to confront Harry, but sober second
thought caused her to abandon this purpose, for she remembered that Harry
was headstrong; that he never abandoned anything that he had firmly
resolved upon doing. She saw that confronting Harry would only have the
effect of causing him to lay his plans the deeper and perhaps so far away
that she could not by any means intercept them.
Morlene began to consider the advisability of putting in motion a counter
current of sentiment in favor of granting the individual citizen the right
of independent action, hoping to create such a broad spirit of tolerance
that the party or parties who were to use Harry as a tool would be afraid
to carry out their programme of murder.
While Harry and Morlene were sitting at the breakfast table one morning,
she said to him, "Harry, I have come across a very good campaign book and
would like to act as agent for it during the next few days. Do you object?"
Without looking up Harry replied, "Of course, not," and continued in
meditation of what he regarded as Dorlan's traitorous crime. Every now and
then he would lay down his knife and fork and rest his hands on the table,
his eyes down-cast, so thoroughly was he aroused over Dorlan's presumption
in claiming the right to find fault with the Republican party.
When Harry had gone to his work, Morlene took her canvassing outfit and
began her labors. She chose with much deliberation the parties to whom she
went to sell the book. Her first task upon meeting the party was to set
forth the claims of the book. She never failed in effecting a sale, for the
parties accosted were willing to pay the price of the book for the
privilege of being brought into contact with a woman of such remarkable
beauty. They could hardly listen to her recital of the claims of the book
for stealing glances at her well shaped, queenly poised head, her pleading,
thrilling eyes, her beautiful face, her perfect form. They sought by
prolonging the conversation to detain her in their presence as long as
possible.
When through talking of her book, Morlene invariably brought up the
"Warthell movement" in order that she might discover the temper of the
people and find out just how much hope there was of arousing public
interest in the matter of securing Dorlan's immunity from attack because he
had essayed to pursue an independent course.
A very eminent lawyer, the real head of the Democratic party of the State,
expressed himself thus to Morlene:
"To be frank with you, Mrs. Dalton, the fact that the "Warthell movement"
might in the end break the solidarity of the Negro vote and cause a
fraction of that vote to eventually drift to us, has no charms for the
Democratic party. For several reasons we do not desire, at present, a
contingent of Negro voters. First of all, the coming of the Negro into our
ranks will cause our party to disintegrate, many men now being held in it
because they there escape contact with the Negro. In the second place, the
Anglo-Saxon habit of thought and the Negro habit of thought are so
essentially different that we prefer their separation."
"Please explain yourself," requested Morlene.
"Certainly," said the lawyer, not at all weary of the pleasure of looking
at and talking to the beauty. "Let me cite you to a Bible incident," he
resumed.
"When Peter, in preaching to the Jews, set forth that God had raised Jesus
Christ from the dead, and had bestowed upon Him greater power and glory
than He had before possessed, the assertion proved to be a befitting
climax to a sermon which resulted in the conversion of some three thousand
persons. Paul, in closing a sermon to the Greeks at Athens, alluded to this
same resurrection of the dead. Instead of proving to be the effective
climax that it was when Peter was preaching to the Jews, it operated as the
weakest point in the discourse, for we are told that at that point, 'some
mocked,' and the assemblage postponed the hearing. Paul in summing up the
difference between the Jew and the Greek habit of thought, remarked that
the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. You note that
the very thing that appealed most strongly to the mind of the Jew--the
miraculous raising of the Jesus--was the most repellant to the Greek, who,
in his search for wisdom, demanded to know the how of every assertion.
"Returning to the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro--I think I can name a number of
differences in their mental attitudes:
"1. The Negro's talent is largely acquisitive; that of the Anglo-Saxon,
inquisitive.
"2. The Negro is of a restful temperament; the Anglo-Saxon is characterized
by a 'restless discontented, striving, burning energy.' As a result the
Negro is painfully conservative, while the Anglo-Saxon is daringly
progressive.
"3. The Negro deals with the immediate; the Anglo-Saxon has a keen eye for
the remote.
"4. The Negro is prone to accept statements that lay claim to being
postulates; the Anglo-Saxon is skeptical, examining into the foundation of
things.
"5. The Negro is impulsive, and is led to act largely by an immediately
exciting stimulus, causing the net results of his labors to appear as a
series of fits and jerks; the Anglo-Saxon is deliberate, cautious without
stagnation, wary and persistent, and his history reveals an unbroken
tendency in a given direction.
"6. Hitherto the preponderating tendency of the Negro has been toward
disintegration, showing the lack of a proper measure of fellow-feeling; the
tendency of the Anglo-Saxon is toward racial integration.
"7. The Negro proceeds by analogies; the Anglo-Saxon by logic.
"8. The Anglo-Saxon is fond of serious discussion and you reach him best
through the sublime; the Negro is inordinately fond of joking and you get
closest to him through the ludicrous. I do not pretend to say that these
are hard and fast lines, separating the Anglo-Saxon and Negro minds into
distinct classes, but they indicate a general unlikeness in many
particulars.
"Now, we Democrats know how to reach Anglo-Saxon minds and the process is
congenial to our general habit of thought. When we address Negroes, we
really have to readjust our faculties of approach. Public speakers find
that various sections of the same country present this difference, even
when all of the people are of the same race. How much greater must be the
chasm between two such widely diverging races."
Morlene exhibited no signs of abating interest, so the lawyer proceeded
further with his remarks.
"Two other reasons may be given why we prefer to be rid of the Negro," he
continued. "The mass of Negroes are poor, some of them very poor, and we
have men among us who would not scruple at perpetually bribing these poor
by little acts of kindness. A poverty stricken, oppressed, helpless people
are comparatively easy prey for the well to do element of an opposite race.
In national politics the Negro's devotion to the Republican party exempts
him from the chicanery of designing whites who would debauch the suffrage.
We do not desire the ignorant Negro vote in municipal affairs for the same
reason that the nations of Europe oppose the dismemberment of Turkey. The
struggle for possession would be too fierce and demoralizing among the
parties desiring the furtherance of their interests. The other reason for
not wanting the Negro vote is that the respective traditions of the two
races are so essentially different.
"You see they (the Negroes) revere Lincoln, Sumner, Whittier, Lovejoy,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Grant, John Brown, etc. We have
no peculiar fondness for these characters. Jefferson Davis, R. E. Lee,
Stonewall Jackson, Pickett, Albert Sidney Johnson, etc., are the objects of
our love and enthusiasm. You see, it is quite natural that people having
such widely differing sentiments should in a measure live apart."
Morlene saw clearly that there was no hope of arousing in this man
enthusiasm over Dorlan's work of altering the existing status in matters
political. She now departed, the lines of sadness deepening on her face.
The lawyer followed her to the door, bade her a polite adieu and turned
away, somehow full of the thought that he had conversed with a superior
creature.
Morlene next went to the head of the Democratic "machine." He was the man
chosen to do the work of "counting out" the opposition if the occasion
seemed to require it. He readily purchased a book, and, when called upon,
expressed his opinion as to the "Warthell movement."
"To tell the truth, we do not want that fellow to succeed. We hold our
people in line by threatening them with the bludgeon of mass voting and
Negro domination. The white people let us machine fellows have our own way
and will scarcely fight us under any consideration for fear that in
destroying the evil that we may represent, they might fall upon another
that is worse, namely, "nigger rule," as they call it. Of course, then, we
machine fellows don't want any such times as that fellow is trying to
inaugurate."
Morlene found the white Republican machine equally antagonistic to Dorlan.
They feared that the abandonment of the Republican party by the great mass
of Negroes of the South would cause a great influx of Southern whites,
which would mean that the day of the small man was over; for many of the
white men who were giants among the Negroes, simply because of their white
faces and professed sympathy, would appear to be only pigmies when brought
into contact with the abler sections of the whites.
The Negro politicians of the smaller calibre that affiliated with the
machine viewed Dorlan's actions with contempt. Their interest in political
campaigns ended with ward meetings, county, district, State and national
conventions. Whatever profit a campaign was to bring to them personally,
they labored to secure while conventions were being held, for they knew
that they would be no more an important factor until the time arrived for
another series of conventions. Not seeing where Dorlan was to profit
personally by his course, they took him to be an enthusiastic crank of some
sort. "How much is there in it," was the shibboleth of their creed, learned
in the school of "peanut" politics where they operated.
Morlene found many intelligent white and colored men who held views
directly opposite to those cited, but they almost invariably wound up by
saying, "But Warthell, it turns out, is ahead of his day. Conditions in the
South are such that good men of both races are better off out of politics."
They were averse to taking any active part in the matter, fearing that, in
view of the inflamed state of the public mind, other interests of theirs
might be jeopardized.
Finding that all hope of enlisting public sentiment in Dorlan's favor had
to be abandoned, Morlene, with a heavy burden on her heart, now turned in
the direction of police headquarters. The chief was out, but a subordinate
presented himself and desired to know her business.
"Sir," said she, "there is a plan on foot to assassinate Dorlan Warthell, a
highly respected Negro of this city."
An angry look came into the face of the policeman. Morlene felt encouraged
by this, hoping that she was at last in a place where Dorlan had a friend.
She now gave the officer the plans of the conspirators as she had overheard
them, taking pains to emphasize the fact that Harry, her husband, was but a
weakling in the hands of the chief conspirator, and that she desired that
he be wrested from his grasp.
The officer took a memorandum of what Morlene had said. When Morlene had
gotten some distance away she recollected something that she deemed it
advisable to tell. She retraced her steps to headquarters, and, as she drew
near the office door, heard Warthell's name called by the officer with whom
she had conferred. Her heart seemed to cease to beat as she heard this
officer say, "Yes, I hope they will kill the scoundrel. I believe in every
man being true to his race. I call a Negro who will work against the
Republicans lower than the dogs. I call a Southern white man who will work
against the Democrats as even lower still. Yes, I hope they will kill the
scoundrel. Let every man stay with his own race, by gosh."
Morlene turned away trembling in every fibre. When she had proceeded some
distance she turned, and pointing her finger in the direction of the
building from which she had just come, said, "Ah! justice, justice, whither
art thou fled? Red-handed murder now sits in thy temple and occupies thy
throne! How long wilst thou withhold thy presence from this beautiful, but
blighted Southland?" Passers by did not know what to make of this beautiful
woman standing with outstretched hand, a look of sorrow and lofty scorn
upon her face.