Mr. Dodson’s refusal to sign the petition on his return, did not shock Miss Schofield’s sensibilities of the injustices of race hatred nearly so much as the ignorance with which Mrs. Dodson maintained her position of missionary worker in an enlightened church supported by an intelligent and supposedly cultured membership.
After Mr. Dodson had given his reasons, which were like hunting mustard seeds in a hay stack and if found was never worth the search, for his refusal to lend his assistance to the righting of the wrongs done Leslie Duncan, Mrs. Dodson interposed herself into the conversation to inquire of Miss Schofield why she was so interested in the Negroes as to live and work wholly among them as if she were one of them herself.
“I am very much obliged to thee for the opportunity to answer that question,” said Miss Schofield in reply.
“Thou must see that the condition of the Negro is such that none, or few of them at this time, is able to lead the race as it should be led. Only a small percentage can either read or write; the most primitive methods of making a livelihood prevail among them and as a result their lives, their morals and their hopes for the future are in jeopardy. I most desire to do a little part in improving the conditions among them, in making their lives better and happier by my having lived. I firmly believe if I succeed in doing so, thee and all thy people will be equally blessed.”
“To the mischief with such doctrine,” retorted Mrs. Dodson. “It is such as you that are putting foolish notions in the heads of these darkies, creating in them a hope for an equality and a social relation repugnant to the sense of all decent people entitled to the benefits of a superior civilization, and I want to tell you that if another war comes it will come as a result of your work.
“You had better stop it and go back to your home and let the Negroes teach themselves. If they have been too lazy and stupid to enlighten themselves in the past it is quite likely such will not be the case in future in this free country along by the side of a superior race from whom they can, if they will, gain all the instruction they need for self improvement by observation.”
Miss Schofield assured her that the question of social equality with the whites was never considered by her in her work except to disparage it; that while she had no regard herself for the color of a person’s skin she taught her students that a deep racial prejudice existed among all races everywhere, especially in the United States, but that it should not be allowed to interfere with their Christianity, that they should show a Christian spirit to all mankind—Jew or Greek, male or female, friend or foe, Negro or white.
“Does not the Bible command thee,” questioned Miss Schofield, “to go into all the world and teach all nations? Does thee, then, not feel that the Negro is one of those to whom thou art commanded to extend thy instruction?”
“Feeling and knowing absolutely that He is I came to the South many years ago to fill one of the commandments of my Lord. As a Christian woman, which I know thee to be, else the literature of thy home belies the character of this house, I ask thee to answer me before God if thee still considers that my work is productive of harmful results and if it should be given up and I go back home in my prime and live a life of indolence, ease and nothingness.”
Mrs. Dodson was greatly perplexed. Miss Schofield convicted her of her neglect of duty in her own country, where as well as in far off China and Japan, it was admittedly very necessary to do missionary work; but she hid as best she could the influence of the speaker’s rebuke and called attention to the thousands of dollars being spent by her society in the cause of home missions. When pressed for a single school being maintained by that association in the interest of the Negro children or the expenditure of as much as a penny for the relief of the material needs of the race, she expressed considerable anger and stated that the taxes paid by the whites were adequate for the education of the colored people and for the support of the indigent among them.