Unfettered Part 10

Bloodworth now a.s.sumed a piteous tone and began: "I am a Southern man.

Before the war my father was rich, but would never own a slave, though he lived right in the South.

"When the war broke out, we turned our back on the South and joined the Union Army. That is, my two brothers did. I stayed at home to care for my aged parents.

"When the war was over, the Negroes needed leaders. I decided to lead them.

This made all of the Southern white people mad at me, and they called me a scalawag. But I led them just the same, and held office so that the Negroes could say that a Republican was in office. I wanted to go higher. I found a colored boy who was poor but brainy. I gave him all the money I made from politics in return for his help to me. He worked along with me until he had gotten thousands of dollars. Then he left me. He left me just when the Republican party needed him most." Here Bloodworth managed to slip an onion near his eyes and tears appeared.

Harry was deeply moved at this show of emotion. He groaned audibly over the perfidy of the Negro who deserted so true a Republican.

"Yes, Harry," sobbed Bloodworth, "he deserted the party of Lincoln, the party that made his people free, the party that made it possible for you all to be what you are. He deserted me, his true and tried friend. He deserted his own race. Dorlan Warth.e.l.l is that man."

Harry was now moved to tears--tears of sympathy, tears of shame over the nefarious deed of a colored man, tears of rage.

"I am a Christian," said Harry. "I am a deacon of a church. But I swear by high heaven that no such scoundrel shall be allowed to live! I shall kill him!"

"n.o.bly spoken! n.o.bly spoken!" said Bloodworth, grasping Harry's hand warmly. "I am proud that I--that is, that my brothers shed their blood to give freedom to such n.o.ble men as you. I am not afraid for the future of your race while such men as you are living."

Harry was grateful to the center of his heart for this tribute to his worth. "May I ever prove worthy of your kind words," said Harry.

"I have no doubt of that. The man who takes Dorlan Warth.e.l.l out of the way will do enough good to make up for any shortcomings that he might have. I have a well arranged plan for his murder and was only looking for a man worthy of the role of princ.i.p.al actor. Lo, I have found him!"

Bloodworth now unfolded the details of his plot to Harry, and explained to him the part that the latter was to take in the killing.

Morlene, who had listened at the keyhole, had heard in great agony the plottings against the life of Dorlan Warth.e.l.l. She had no qualms of conscience about listening, for, having seen crime stamped on Bloodworth's face, she had employed the usual method of entrapping criminals--spying.

Bloodworth and Harry were fully determined upon Dorlan's murder. Morlene determined to save his life, even if in so doing she lost her own.

CHAPTER XVI.

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 canva.s.sing 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 "Warth.e.l.l 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 "Warth.e.l.l 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 G.o.d had raised Jesus Christ from the dead, and had bestowed upon Him greater power and glory than He had before possessed, the a.s.sertion 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 a.s.semblage 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 a.s.sertion.

"Returning to the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro--I think I can name a number of differences in their mental att.i.tudes:

"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 p.r.o.ne 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 a.n.a.logies; 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 cla.s.ses, 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 ma.s.s 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 munic.i.p.al 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 Dougla.s.s, 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 "Warth.e.l.l 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 ma.s.s 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, "n.i.g.g.e.r 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 ma.s.s 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 s.h.i.+bboleth of their creed, learned in the school of "peanut" politics where they operated.