Overshadowed: A Novel

by Sutton E. Griggs

A POLITICAL TRICK.

"Hello, Christian, old boy. I am truly glad to see you back."

"Thank you, friend Stewart, thank you. I confess that I am much more than glad to be back. I would not have missed being here this year for anything. Why, we are to have a Railroad Bill before us and the question of electing a United States Senator, and nobody wants to miss good things like those."

"You are right. But from the way the papers read, you were having a hot time of it, and we all gave you up as a gone chap, once. How on earth did you pull through?"

Horace Christian's face took on a serious expression, and he looked around and around anxiously, and said, "Come with me over to my room, Stewart, and I will tell you the whole story. The thing isn't altogether to my credit, but I can trust a chap like you."

Such was a conversation that took place in front of the State Capitol at Richmond at the close of the first day's session of the Legislature. The sun was just down and flashing a defiant look backward on coming night. The speakers were two members of the House of Delegates. The time is but a short period subsequent to John Wysong's confession to Erma.

Horace Christian was slightly below the medium in stature, had dark eyes and facial features of the most commonplace type. There was no marked peculiarity about him, nothing that would so impress you that you could point him out again if you saw him in a crowd. The two locked arms and went walking out of the Capitol yard, and over to Christian's room in Ford's Hotel. Once there, they locked the door to his room and took seats at a table in the center of the room. Christian offered Stewart a cigar, and taking one himself, lighted it, and leaning back in his chair, threw one leg over the table. Sitting thus, his hat on his head, he began his story, the gloom of evening fast creeping on.

"Well, Stewart, my election came about in this way. You know my district is a very close one, and a fellow's election is determined by a very few votes. On previous occasions I had paid out a little money and bought up the Negro vote to such an extent as to secure my election. But this time the Republicans put up as their candidate an ex-general in the Confederate Army. An Ex-Confederate who confesses to the error of his ways and joins the Republicans can always rely on the Negroes killing the fatted calf for him. So my opponent was just sweeping things before him. I began to look upon my candidacy as a forlorn hope, until an idea, which I regarded as a brilliant one, flashed into my mind.

"You know, Stewart, the Negro's weak point is gratitude to the white man. That point in the Negro race is over developed. I have noticed that a merchant can keep a Negro's trade forever by merely speaking to him kindly. The Negro seems to feel that he owes the white man his trade for that friendly greeting, and he will not quit trading with him to trade with a member of his own race. A smile from a white man will go farther toward getting a Negro's trade than a day's pleasant conversation from another Negro, the Negro feels so grateful for the condescension of the white man. If a white man cuts off a Negro's leg, expresses sorrow for it, and gives him a cork one, accompanied with a kindly pat on his shoulder, that Negro feels under a debt of gratitude to that white man all his days. I reasoned, then, that my only salvation lay in doing something to get the gratitude of the Negro. Just now all the gratitude of the Negroes is lavished upon Southern whites who denounce lynching. I decided to get an anti-lynching record. But I could not get that record without a lynching. If I was to get to the Legislature and have a finger in the pie, I must have a lynching. The question had reduced itself to this simple proposition; no lynching, no seat in the Legislature, or a lynching and a seat in the Legislature. I argued with myself that it would not matter so much with the universe if one more innocent Negro were lynched. Just one more name to the long list of innocents slain would not be such a great addition. Besides, I argued, if the lynching spirit goes on, some innocent Negro will soon be lynched and nothing gained, but in my case there is something to gain—a seat in the Assembly at a most opportune time.

"Having toned my conscience down, I began to concoct my scheme. Of course, that was the easiest part of the job. You know that in the chivalrous South whenever a white woman throws out a hint against a Negro, he might as well make his will. I decided to take advantage of this chivalrous feeling and make it serve my purposes. A false charge was trumped up against a Negro, and he was soon in the hands of a mob. According to prearranged plans, the Negro was being led forth to the place where he was to be hanged, when I came upon the scene and besought the mob to halt. This they did, and listened to remarks from me, denunciatory of their proposed actions. Only the leaders knew of my true relation to the whole affair.