There are 2,000,000 Negro children of school age in the South not in school. Let all who would aid in the solution of the Negro problem find a means of reaching these 2,000,000 blacks by the school, and the neglected ignorant whites, in self-defense, will be forced into the school room. Give the black child $10.23 per capita instead of $2.82 now allotted for its education, raise the per capita to that spent for the education of the white child, and the white people will then double the money for the education of their children. This would raise the expenditures for Negro education in the common schools of the South to about $35,000,000 annually, and this amount is actually needed in putting the two million out of school in school and stirring the whites to greater activity in the education of their own race.
CHAPTER XIII.
Matilda and Leslie Call.
At the close of one of the first meetings of the farmer’s conference in Schofield chapel at which was discussed more than anything else the growing friction between the white and colored people, there called at the Schofield school a young woman, accompanied by a man about her age, and each appeared to be exhausted from travel and greatly excited from some cause or other, no one knew just what.
It was Matilda Deas and Leslie Duncan, the two young lovers who had escaped from Millard Dodson a few days before and left him and his horse tied securely in the woods.
The story of how the young man had been given a race for his life at the hands of a mob and how the young woman had escaped the lust and power of the beastly Dodson only after her life had been despoiled by him and of the circumstances attending the stabbing of the young Dodson boy, greatly affected Miss Schofield, and with all her heart she sympathized with the poor helpless Negroes. Yet she knew that the concealment and protection of the boy meant the lighting of the bomb manufactured by the Dodsons to produce the explosion of race prejudice that the ignorant white people so much desired. She did not light it, but instead drove to the scene of the disturbance and ascertained personally the truth about the whole matter, as well as the seriousness of the situation to the whole Negro population. On returning she informed young Duncan that it would be very unwise, and exceedingly unjust to the thousands of others of his race, for her to conceal him on the school premises as the inflammatory conditions worked up among the people by the Dodsons demanded nothing less than his life if his whereabouts became known and, perhaps, by her intercession in his behalf would mean the extension of it to include others of his people and so cause the death of many instead of only one. But she promised him absolute protection, even at the cost of her school and all its property until communication with the organized authorities of the County and State could be had, and substantial guarantees were given by these that his life would be safe and he be given a fair trial on the charges laid against him.
In due time the contingencies for the trial were arranged and Leslie was delivered up to the Sheriff of the County, who took him to jail to await the action of the Court, which would be determined largely by the result of the injuries suffered by the Dodson child. Under direction of the Governor of the State a sufficient guard had been placed around the jail for the protection of the prisoner at all hazards. This was done at the insistance of Miss Schofield whose influence with the head of the Democratic Party in power was great only because of her influence at the North in the passage of measures of a conciliatory nature in reconstructing the States of the South. It was of little or no consequence to the ruling element whether Duncan was lynched or not, except in so far as his murder might retard the progress the whites were making in gaining favor with the reactionaries in Congress.
While abundant evidence was introduced at the trial to justify the actions of Leslie in stabbing Willie Dodson, no weight or consideration whatever was given it by the perjured members of the jury, all having formed an opinion before the trial that the “nigger” would get off light if he escaped with his life. After being in the jury room but three minutes the talesman returned with the results of their brief deliberations summed up in one word, “Guilty.”
That, of course, was the verdict. No recommendation to mercy out of consideration of the age of the youthful prisoner or the acknowledged great provocation under which the act was committed.
When replying “No, sir” to the question as to whether he had anything to say why sentence should not be passed upon him the Court promptly replied that it certainly had and proceeded to say it in these words, “I wish you were of age, Leslie, that I might give you the full benefit of the law on this charge, one of a most serious nature, murder with intent to kill. But on account of your youth, out of mercy of the Court, I will make the sentence as light as possible. You are sentenced to five years imprisonment in the penitentiary at hard labor.”