On their way to the hall on the Bowery Gerrit Smith and John Brownpassed through dimly lighted streets along which were drifting scores ofboys and girls, ragged, friendless, homeless, shelterless in the chillnight. The strange old man\'s eyes were fixed on space. He saw nothing,heard nothing of the city\'s roaring life or the call of its fathomlessmisery.
He saw nothing even when they passed a house with a red light beforewhich little girls of twelve were selling flowers. Neither of the men,living for a single fixed idea, caught the accent of evil in the child\'svoice as she stepped squarely in front of them and said:
"What\'s ye hurry?"When they turned aside she piped again:
"Won\'t ye come in?"They merely passed on. The infinite pathos of the scene had made noimpression. That this child\'s presence on the streets was enough todamn the whole system of society to the lowest hell never dawned on thephilanthropist or the man of Action.
The crowd in the hall was not large. The place was about half full andit seated barely five hundred. The masses of the North as yet took nostock in the Abolition Crusade.
They felt the terrific pressure of the problem of life at home tookeenly to go into hysterics over the evils of Negro Slavery in theSouth. William Lloyd Garrison had been preaching his denunciations fortwenty-one years and its fruits were small. The masses of the peoplewere indifferent.
But a man was pushing his way to the platform of the little hallto-night who was destined to do a deed that would accomplish what allthe books and all the magazines and all the newspapers of the Crusadershad tried in vain to do.
Small as the crowd was, there was something sinister in its composition.
Half of them were foreigners. It was the first wave of the flood ofdegradation for our racial stock in the North--the racial stock of JohnAdams and John Hancock.
A few workingmen were scattered among them. Fifty or sixty negroesoccupied the front rows. Sam had secured a seat on the aisle. GerritSmith rose without ceremony and introduced Brown. There were no womenpresent. He used the formal address to the American voter:
"Fellow Citizens:
"I have the honor to present to you to-night a man chosen of God to leadour people out of the darkness of sin, my fellow worker in the Kingdom,the friend of the downtrodden and the oppressed, John Brown."Faint applause greeted the old man as he moved briskly to the littletable with his quick, springing step.
He fixed the people with his brilliant eyes and they were silent. He wasslow of speech, awkward in gesture, and without skill in the building ofideas to hold the imagination of the typical crowd.
It was not a typical crowd of American freemen. It was something newunder the sun in our history. It was the beginning of the coming mobmind destined to use Direct Action in defiance of the Laws on which theRepublic had been built.
There was no mistaking the message Brown bore. He proclaimed that thenegro is the blood brother of the white man. The color of his skin wasan accident. This white man with a black skin was now being beaten andground into the dust by the infamy of his masters. Their crimes criedto God for vengeance. All the negro needed was freedom to transform himinto a white man--your equal and mine. At present, our brothers andsisters are groaning in chains on Southern plantations. His vaultingmetallic tones throbbed with a strange, cold passion as he called forAction.
The vibrant call for bloodshed in this cry melted the crowd into a newpersonality. The mildest spirit among them was merged into the mobmind of the speaker. And every man within the sound of his voice was amurderer.
The final leap of the speaker\'s soul into an expression of supreme hatefor the Southern white man found its instant echo in the mob whichhe had created. They demanded no facts. They asked no reasons. Theyaccepted his statements as the oracle of God. They were opinions,beliefs, dogmas, the cries of propaganda only--precisely the food neededfor developing the mob mind to its full strength. Envy, jealousy, hatredruled supreme. Liberty was a catchword. Blood lust was the motive powerdriving each heart beat.
Brown suddenly stopped. His speech had reached no climax. It had rambledinto repetition. Its power consisted in the repetition of a fixedthought. He knew the power of this repeated hammering on the mind. Anidea can be repeated until it is believed, true or false. He had poundedhis message into his hearers until they were incapable of resistance. Itwas unnecessary for him to continue. He stopped so suddenly, they waitedin silence for him to go on after he had taken his seat.
A faint applause again swept the front of the house. There was somethinguncanny about the man that hushed applause. They knew that he wasindifferent to it. Hidden fires burned within him that lighted the wayof life. He needed no torches held on high. He asked no honors.
He expected no applause and he got little. What he did demand wassubmission to his will and obedience as followers.
Gerrit Smith rose with this thought gripping his gentle spirit. Hiswords came automatically as if driven by another\'s mind.
"Our friend and leader has dedicated his life to the service ofsuffering humanity. It is our duty to follow. The first step is tosacrifice our money in his cause."The ushers passed the baskets and Sam\'s heart warmed as he heard thecoin rattle. His eyes bulged when he saw that one of them had a pile ofbills in it that covered the coin. He heard the great and good man saythat it was for the poor brother in black. He saw visions of a warmroom, of clean food and plenty of it.
He was glad he\'d come, although he didn\'t like the look in John Brown\'seyes while he spoke. Their fierce light seemed to bore through him andhurt. Now that he was seated and his eyes half closed, uplifted towardthe ceiling, he wasn\'t so formidable. He rather liked him sitting down.
The ushers poured the money on the table and counted it. Sam had notseen so much money together since he piled his five hundred dollars ingold in a stack and looked at it. He watched the count with fascination.
There must be a thousand at least.
He was shocked when the head usher leaned over the edge of the platform,and whispered to Smith the total.
"Eighty-five dollars."Sam glanced sadly at the two rows of negroes in front. There wouldn\'tbe much for each. He took courage in the thought, however, that some ofthem were well-to-do and wouldn\'t ask their share. He was sure of thisbecause he had seen three or four put something in the baskets.
Gerrit Smith announced the amount of the collection with someembarrassment and heartily added:
"My check for a hundred and fifteen dollars makes the sum an even twohundred."That was something worth while. Smith and Brown held a conference aboutthe announcement of another meeting as Sam whispered to the head usher:
"Could ye des gimme mine now an\' lemme go?""Yours?""Yassah.""Your share of the collection?"The usher eyed him in scorn.
"To be sho," Sam answered confidently. "Yer tuk it up fer de po\' blackman. I\'se black, an\' God knows I\'se po\'.""You\'re a poor fool!""What ye take hit up fer den?""To support John Brown, not to feed lazy, good-for-nothing, freenegroes."Sam turned from the man in disgust. He was about to rise and shambleback to his miserable pallet when a sudden craning of necks and movingof feet drew his eye toward the door.
He saw a man stalking down the aisle. He carried on his left arm alittle bundle of filthy rags. He mounted the platform and spoke to theChairman:
"Mr. Smith, may I say just a word to this meeting?"The Philanthropist Congressman recognized him instantly as the mosteloquent orator in the labor movement in America. He had met him at aReform Convention. He rose at once.
"Certainly.""Fellow Citizens, Mr. George Evans, the leading advocate of OrganizedLabor in America, wishes to speak to you. Will you hear him?""Yes! Yes! Yes!" came from all parts of the house.
The man began in quivering tones that held Sam and gripped the unwillingmind of the crowd:
"My friends: Just a few words. I have in my arms the still breathingskeleton of a little girl. I found her in a street behind this buildingwithin the sound of the voice of your speaker."He paused and waved to John Brown.
"She was fighting with a stray cat for a crust of bread in a garbagepail. I hold her on high."With both hands he lifted the dazed thing above his head.
"Look at her. This bundle of rags God made in the form of a woman to bethe mother of the race. She has been thrown into your streets to starve.
Her father is a workingman whom I know. For six months, out of work,he fought with death and hell, and hell won. He is now in prison. Hermother, unable to support herself and child, sought oblivion in drink.
She\'s in the gutter to-night. Her brother has joined a gang on the EastSide. Her sister is a girl of the streets.
"You talk to me of Negro Slavery in the South? Behold the child of theWhite Wage Slave of the North! Why are you crying over the poor negro?
In the South the master owns the slave. Here the master owns the job.
Down there the mast............