His mind recurred to the impression that seemed to prevail in some quarters that the solution of the problem mainly hinged upon giving industrial training to the Negro masses.
"That," said he to himself, "will solve a large part of the Negro's side of the problem, but how great an army of carpenters can hammer the spirit of repression out of those who hold that the eternal repression of the Negro is the nation's only safeguard? What worker in iron can fashion a key that will open the door to that world of higher activities, the world of moral and spiritual forces which alone woos Eunice's spirit and mine? What welder of steel can beat into one the discordant soul forces of willing Negroes and unwilling whites, the really pivotal point of the problem? Really pressing is the need of industrial training for our people, but my peculiar case calls for something that must come from Lincoln the emancipator rather than from Lincoln the rail-splitter."
Earl next thought of Ensal's proposed campaign of education which had been vigorously carried on by Tiara and he said: "It is one thing to produce a Niagara and another thing to harness it. O for a means of harnessing all the righteous sentiment in America in favor of the ideals of the Constitution." Thus, on and on Earl soliloquized, groping for the light.
He stretched out upon the sofa and sought to refresh his tired brain with a few moments of sleep, but sleep refused to visit him. Suddenly he leaped from the sofa and said:
"I have it! I have it! Eunice shall be free."
He now began to make hurried preparations for a trip South. While he is thus engaged we shall divulge to the reader the process of reasoning that at last led him to what he conceived to be daylight.
"Two things must be done," argued Earl within himself. "Repression in the South must die and men with broader visions in that section must take charge of affairs. This is an age of freedom and an age of local self-government. Freedom must obtain in the South, and largely through some agency found or developed therein. The most effective way of killing repression is to make it kill itself and out of the soil nurtured by its carcass will spring a just order of things.
"I will lure repression to its death and then find my force within the South that will lead the South into nobler ways."
Understanding this much of Earl's new plan we are now prepared to follow him and intelligently watch developments.
The scene now shifts from the North to the South.