It has been quite a length of time since we left Mr. Thomas and his
young friend facing an uncertain future. Since then he has not only been
successful in building up a good business for himself, but in opening
the gates to others. His success has not inflated him with pride.
Neither has he become self-abashed and isolated from others less
fortunate, who need his counsel and sympathy. Generous and noble in his
character, he was conservative enough to cling to the good of the past
and radical enough to give hospitality to every new idea which was
calculated to benefit and make life noble and better. Mr. Thomas, in
laying the foundation of his education, was thoughtful enough to enter
a manual labor school, where he had the double advantage of getting
an education and learning a trade, through which he was enabled to
rely on himself without asking aid from any one, which in itself was
an education in manliness, self-respect and self-reliance, that he
could not have obtained had he been the protege of the wealthiest
philanthropist in the land. As he had fine mechanical skill and
ingenuity, he became an excellent carpenter. But it is one thing to have
a trade and another thing to have an opportunity to exercise that trade.
It was a time when a number of colored churches were being erected. To
build large and even magnificent churches seemed to be a ruling passion
with the colored people. Their homes might be very humble, their walls
bare of pictured grace, but by united efforts they could erect large and
handsome churches in which they had a common possession and it was one
of the grand satisfactions of freedom that they were enabled to build
their own churches and carry on their own business without being
interfered with, and overlooked by a class of white ecclesiastics whose
presence was a reminder of their implied inferiority. The church of
which Mr. Thomas was a member was about to erect a costly edifice. The
trustees would probably have willingly put the work in the hands of a
colored man, had there been a sufficient number to have done the work,
but they did not seem to remember that white prejudice had barred the
Northern workshops against the colored man, that slavery, by degrading
and monopolizing labor had been the means of educating colored men in
the South to be good mechanics, and that a little pains and search on
their part might have brought to light colored carpenters in the South
who would have done the work as efficiently as those whom they employed,
but as the trustees were not very farsighted men, they did the most
available thing that came to hand; they employed a white man. Mr.
Thomas' pastor applied to the master builder for a place for his
parishioner.
"Can you give employment to one of my members, on our church?" Rev.
Mr. Lomax asked the master builder.
"I would willingly do so, but I can not."
"Why not?"
"Because my men would all rise up against it. Now, for my part, I have
no prejudice against your parishioner, but my men will not work with a
colored man. I would let them all go if I could get enough colored men
to suit me just as well, but such is the condition of the labor market,
that a man must either submit to a number of unpalatable things or run
the risk of a strike and being boycotted. I think some of these men who
want so much liberty for themselves have very little idea of it for
other people."
After this conversation the minister told Mr. Thomas the result of his
interview with the master builder, and said,
"I am very sorry; but it is as it is, and it can't be any better."
"Do you mean by that that things are always going to remain as they
are?"
"I do not see any quick way out of it. This prejudice is the outgrowth
of ages; it did not come in a day, nor do I expect that it will vanish
in an hour."
"Nor do I; but I do not think the best way for a people to mend their
pastures is to sit down and bewail their fate."
"No; we must be up and going for ourselves. White people will----"
"White people," exclaimed Mr. Thomas somewhat impatiently. "Is there not
a great deal of bosh in the estimate some of us have formed of white
people. We share a common human feeling, from which the same cause
produces the same effect. Why am I today a social Pariah, begging for
work, and refused situation after situation? My father is a wealthy
Southerner; he has several other sons who are inheritors of his name and
heirs of his wealth. They are educated, cultured and occupy high social
positions. Had I not as good a right to be well born as any of them? And
yet, through my father's crime, I was doomed to the status of a slave
with its heritage of ignorance, poverty and social debasement. Talk of
the heathenism of Africa, of hostile tribes warring upon each other and
selling the conquered foes into the hands of white men, but how much
higher in the scale of moral progression was the white man who doomed
his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, to a life of
slavery? The heathen could plead in his defence the fortunes of war, and
the hostility of an opposing tribe, but the white man who enslaved his
child warred upon his hapless offspring and wrote chattel upon his
condition when his hand was too feeble to hurl aside the accursed hand
and recognize no other ownership but God. I once felt bitterly on this
subject, and although it is impossible for my father to make full
reparation for the personal wrong inflicted on me, I owe him no grudge.
Hating is poor employment for any rational being, but I am not prepared
to glorify him at the expense of my mother's race. She was faithful to
me when he deserted me to a life of ignorance and poverty, and although
three-fourths of the blood in my veins belongs to my father's face, I
feel a kinship with my mother's people that I do not with his, and I
will defend that race from the aspersions of the meanest Negro hater in
the land. Heathenism and civilization live side by side on American
soil, but all the heathenism is not on the side of the Negro. Look at
slavery and kukluxism with their meanness and crimes, mormonism with its
vile abominations, lynch law with its burnings and hangings, our
national policy in regard to the Indians and Chinese."
"I do not think," said the minister, "that there is another civilized
country in the world where men are lynched for real or supposed crimes
outside of America."
"The Negro need not bow his head like a bulrush in the presence of a
race whose records are as stained by crime and dishonor as theirs. Let
others decry the Negro, and say hard things about him, I am not prepared
to join in the chorus of depreciation."
After parting with the minister, Mr. Thomas resolved, if pluck and
energy were of any avail, that he would leave no stone unturned in
seeking employment. He searched the papers carefully for advertisements,
walked from one workshop to the other looking for work, and was
eventually met with a refusal which meant, no negro need apply. At last
one day when he had tried almost every workshop in the place, he entered
the establishment of Wm. C. Nell, an Englishman who had not been long
enough in America to be fully saturated by its Christless and inhuman
prejudices. He was willing to give Mr. Thomas work, and put tools in his
hands, and while watching how deftly he handled them, he did not notice
the indignant scowls on the faces of his workmen, and their murmurs of
disapprobation as they uttered their dissatisfaction one to the other.
At length they took off their aprons, laid down their tools and asked to
be discharged from work.
"Why, what does this mean?" asked the astounded Englishman.
"It means that we will not work with a nigger."
"Why, I don't understand? what is the matter with him?"
"Why, there's nothing the matter, only he's a nigger, and we never put
niggers on an equality with us, and we never will."
"But I am a stranger in this country, and I don't understand you."
"Well, he's a nigger, and we don't want niggers for nothing; would you
have your daughter marry a nigger?"
"Oh, go back to your work; I never thought of such a thing. I think the
Negro must be an unfortunate man, and I do not wish my daughter to marry
any unfortunate man, but if you do not want to work with him I will put
him by himself; there is room enough on the premises; will that suit you
any better?"
"No; we won't work for a man who employs a nigger."
The builder bit his lip; he had come to America hearing that it was a
land of liberty but he had found an undreamed of tyranny which had
entered his workshop and controlled his choice of workmen, and as much
as he deprecated the injustice, it was the dictum of a vitiated public
opinion that his field of occupation should be closed against the Negro,
and he felt that he was forced, either to give up his business or submit
to the decree.
Mr. Thomas then thought, "my money is vanishing, school rooms and
workshops are closed against me. I will not beg, and I can not resort to
any questionable means for bread. I will now take any position or do any
work by which I can make an honest living." Just as he was looking
gloomily at the future an old school mate laid his hand upon his
shoulder and said, "how do you do, old fellow? I have not seen you for a
week of Sundays. What are you driving at now?"
"Oh, nothing in particular. I am looking for work."
"Well, now this is just the ticket. I have just returned from the
Pacific coast and while I was there I did splendidly; everything I
touched turned to gold, and now I have a good job on hand if you are not
too squeamish to take it. I have just set up a tiptop restaurant and
saloon, and I have some of the best merchants of the city as my
customers, and I want a first rate clerk. You were always good at
figures and if you will accept the place come with me right away. Since
high license went into operation, I am making money hand over fist. It
is just like the big fish eating up the little fish. I am doing a
rushing business and I want you to do my clerking."
The first thought which rushed into Mr. Thomas' mind was, "Is thy
servant a dog that he should do this thing?" but he restrained his
indignation and said,
"No, Frank, I cannot accept your offer; I am a temperance man and a
prohibitionist, and I would rather have my hands clean than to have them
foul."
"You are a greater milksop than I gave you credit for. Here you are
hunting work, and find door after door closed against you, not because
you are not but because you are colored, and here am I offering you easy
employment and good wages and you refuse them."
"Frank," said Mr. Thomas, "I am a poor man, but I would rather rise up
early, and sit up late and eat the bread of carelessness, than to roll
in wealth by keeping a liquor saloon, and I am determined that no
drunkard shall ever charge me with having helped drag him down to
misery, shame and death. No drunkard's wife shall ever lay the wreck of
her home at my door."
"My business," said Frank Miller, "is a legitimate one; there is money
in it, and I am after that. If people will drink too much and make fools
of themselves I can't help it; it is none of my business, and if I don't
sell to them other people will. I don't think much of a man who does not
know how to govern himself, but it is no use arguing with you when you
are once set in your ways; good morning."