The Call of the South

by Robert Lee Durham

"I accepted his apology—on condition he would not do it again;" and she broke out into real mirth at sight of Lola's scandalized face.

CHAPTER XVI

If The Mail's editorial was conservative, other papers were not so respectful. It was worse even than Mrs. Phillips had predicted. All over the South the papers ran the whole gamut of indignation and abuse from lofty scorn all the way down to plain editorial fits. The entire Southern press, Democratic, Republican, and Independent, except a few sheets edited by negroes, were of one mind on the subject of negroes dining with white men. Papers that had supported Mr. Phillips heartily were all severe, some of them bitter, in their denunciations.

The Wordyfellow element in the school-fund fight welcomed the President's act as a boon from heaven. They raised a howl that was heard in every nook and corner of the Southland, and that by the very thundering shock of its roar broke through and drove back the forces of the negro's friends. The weak-willed were borne down and the timid and the doubting were carried away by the purely physical force of noise or by having lashed to fury their sometimes latent but ever-present terror of the Black Peril. And not only the weak, indeed, and the timid and the doubting went in crowds to the Wordyfellow camp, but strong men, fearless men, men of the most philanthropic impulses toward the negro race, men who had fought openly and ably the Wordyfellow propaganda, became silent and began to waver, or deserted the negro's cause and unhesitatingly espoused the other side.

In vain did the negro's staunchest friends proclaim their indignation at the President's lunching with Bishop Martin and Doctor Woods, and try to convince their people that the South should be true to its own interests and do simple justice to the negro despite any act of his fool friends. It was useless. The Southern people—the floating vote, the balance of power—were in no mood to draw fine distinctions, nor to listen to theories in face of facts. A careless hand had struck the wavering balance, and the beam went steadily down.

Reports of defections began to come rapidly to Mr. Phillips. Those from the negroes in the South told of the losses faithfully, but gave any other than the true reason for the change of sentiment; while letters from his white advisers told him more or less plainly that his negro luncheon had done the damage and that the cause was as good as lost.

These reports roused the President's fighting blood. He sent for Mackenzie.

"Read that stack of letters, Mac, and you will see that the negroes in the South are in a fair way to be trampled to death. Now I must head this thing off, and I want your help. I am determined to defeat that Wordyfellow movement if there is power in the Federal government. I'll not be content to have the laws annulled by the Federal Supreme Court after they are passed, even if that can be done. We must find some way to win this fight in the elections and thus give the lie to these prophecies that that luncheon has lost the battle."

So he and the astute Mackenzie rubbed their heads together for a week: and finally came to a remedy so simple that they were ashamed not to have thought of it at once. Simple indeed—if they could apply it. In less than another week, Mr. Hare, the recognized administration mouthpiece in the House, introduced a bill appropriating moneys from the national treasury to the States in proportion to population for purposes of public education. The milk in this legislative cocoanut was a provision that the money apportioned to each State should be so distributed among the individual public schools of the State that, when taken together with the State's own appropriation, all the schools in the State should be open for terms of equal length.

From statistics carefully compiled in the office of the Commissioner of Education Mr. Phillips and Mr. Mackenzie had calculated the amount of the appropriation so that if the Southern States adopted the Wordyfellow plan the negro race would get virtually the whole of the appropriation from the national government.