Carteret fished from the depths of the waste-basket and handed to the general an eighteen by twenty-four sheet, poorly printed on cheap paper, with a "patent" inside, a number of advertisements of proprietary1 medicines, quack2 doctors, and fortune-tellers, and two or three columns of editorial and local news. Candor3 compels the admission that it was not an impressive sheet in any respect, except when regarded as the first local effort of a struggling people to make public expression of their life and aspirations4. From this point of view it did not speak at all badly for a class to whom, a generation before, newspapers, books, and learning had been forbidden fruit.
"It's an elegant specimen6 of journalism7, isn't it?" laughed the general, airily. "Listen to this 'ad':—
"'Kinky, curly hair made straight by one application of our specific. Our face bleach8 will turn the skin of a black or brown person four or five shades lighter9, and of a mulatto perfectly10 white. When you get the color you wish, stop using the preparation.'
"Just look at those heads!—'Before using' and 'After using.' We'd better hurry, or there'll be no negroes to disfranchise! If they don't stop till they get the color they desire, and the stuff works according to contract, they'll all be white. Ah! what have we here? This looks as though it might be serious." Opening the sheet the general read aloud an editorial article, to which Carteret listened intently, his indignation increasing in strength from the first word to the last, while McBane's face grew darkly purple with anger.
The article was a frank and somewhat bold discussion of lynching and its causes. It denied that most lynchings were for the offense12 most generally charged as their justification13, and declared that, even of those seemingly traced to this cause, many were not for crimes at all, but for voluntary acts which might naturally be expected to follow from the miscegenation14 laws by which it was sought, in all the Southern States, to destroy liberty of contract, and, for the purpose of maintaining a fanciful purity of race, to make crimes of marriages to which neither nature nor religion nor the laws of other states interposed any insurmountable barrier. Such an article in a Northern newspaper would have attracted no special attention, and might merely have furnished food to an occasional reader for serious thought upon a subject not exactly agreeable; but coming from a colored man, in a Southern city, it was an indictment15 of the laws and social system of the South that could not fail of creating a profound sensation.
"Infamous—infamous!" exclaimed Carteret, his voice trembling with emotion. "The paper should be suppressed immediately."
"The impudent16 nigger ought to be horsewhipped and run out of town," growled17 McBane.
"Gentlemen," said the general soothingly18, after the first burst of indignation had subsided19, "I believe we can find a more effective use for this article, which, by the way, will not bear too close analysis,—there's some truth in it, at least there's an argument." "That is not the point," interrupted Carteret.
"No," interjected McBane with an oath, "that ain't at all the point.
Truth or not, no damn nigger has any right to say it."
"This article," said Carteret, "violates an unwritten law of the South. If we are to tolerate this race of weaklings among us, until they are eliminated by the stress of competition, it must be upon terms which we lay down. One of our conditions is violated by this article, in which our wisdom is assailed20, and our women made the subject of offensive comment. We must make known our disapproval21."
"I say lynch the nigger, break up the press, and burn down the newspaper office," McBane responded promptly22.
"Gentlemen," interposed the general, "would you mind suspending the discussion for a moment, while I mind Jerry across the street? I think I can then suggest a better plan."
Carteret rang the bell for Jerry, who answered promptly. He had been expecting such a call ever since the gentlemen had gone in.
"Jerry," said the general, "step across to Brown's and tell him to send me three Calhoun cocktails23. Wait for them,—here's the money."
"Yas, suh," replied Jerry, taking the proffered24 coin.
"And make has'e, charcoal," added McBane, "for we're gettin' damn dry."
A momentary25 cloud of annoyance26 darkened Carteret's brow. McBane had always grated upon his aristocratic susceptibilities. The captain was an upstart, a product of the democratic idea operating upon the poor white man, the descendant of the indentured27 bondservant and the socially unfit. He had wealth and energy, however, and it was necessary to make use of him; but the example of such men was a strong incentive28 to Carteret in his campaign against the negro. It was distasteful enough to rub elbows with an illiterate29 and vulgar white man of no ancestry,—the risk of similar contact with negroes was to be avoided at any cost. He could hardly expect McBane to be a gentleman, but when among men of that class he might at least try to imitate their manners. A gentleman did not order his own servants around offensively, to say nothing of another's.
The general had observed Carteret's annoyance, and remarked pleasantly while they waited for the servant's return:—
"Jerry, now, is a very good negro. He's not one of your new negroes, who think themselves as good as white men, and want to run the government. Jerry knows his place,—he is respectful, humble30, obedient, and content with the face and place assigned to him by nature."
"Yes, he's one of the best of 'em," sneered31 McBane. "He'll call any man 'master' for a quarter, or 'God' for half a dollar; for a dollar he'll grovel32 at your feet, and for a cast-off coat you can buy an option on his immortal33 soul,—if he has one! I've handled niggers for ten years, and I know 'em from the ground up. They're all alike,—they're a scrub race, an affliction to the country, and the quicker we're rid of 'em all the better."
Carteret had nothing to say by way of dissent34. McBane's sentiments, in their last analysis, were much the same as his, though he would have expressed them less brutally35. "The negro," observed the general, daintily flicking36 the ash from his cigar, "is all right in his place and very useful to the community. We lived on his labor37 for quite a long time, and lived very well. Nevertheless we are better off without slavery, for we can get more out of the free negro, and with less responsibility. I really do not see how we could get along without the negroes. If they were all like Jerry, we'd have no trouble with them."
Having procured38 the drinks, Jerry, the momentary subject of the race discussion which goes on eternally in t............