CHAPTER XX.
THE BYSTANDERS CHEER.
From his quest of Morlene, on the morning of her escape, Harry returned to his home in a sullen mood. Morlene's lack of appreciation of his disinterested patriotism which her course revealed to him, was a blow in itself, apart from his loss of her as a wife. The fact that he had lost his wife and had not slept any during the whole night did not, however, cause him to remain away from his accustomed labor that day. Cooking his own breakfast, he ate his solitary meal and went forth to his daily task. Anxious to learn what view others took of the happening of the previous night, he purchased a copy of a morning paper and read its comments thereon. It was the same paper that had commented so favorably upon what it termed the "Warthell Movement." Harry turned immediately to the editorial columns and read far enough to see that his act was being condemned. Thereupon he tore the paper into shreds, threw it to the ground and trampled upon it.
"Sure sign that I did right to attack that scoundrel Warthell, if it has made this old Democratic paper mad. Ha, ha, ha! Morlene thought I was doing wrong. I wasn't though, anybody can see, for what would this old Democratic paper be kicking about if what I did wasn't against it?" Thus muttered Harry to himself as he went on to his work.
"We'll hear a different tune when the Northern Republican papers begin to discuss our attempt to get rid of these Negro traitors who are plotting to undo all that the North has done for us. I take my medicine from the North; let the South go where it please. See? Any Negro that will stand up for the South against the North is an infernal, ungrateful, good for nothing rascal, and ought to be killed. Tell him I said so." These last words, addressed by Harry to himself, were accompanied with the shaking of a clenched fist at an imaginary foe. The more he pondered his course, the more he praised himself, and the more outrageous Morlene's desertion of him seemed. Eagerly he awaited the coming of the Northern papers that he might regard his vindication as complete.
Harry went about his daily task in a half cheerful, half moody frame of mind, pondering what steps to take with reference to his wife, but arriving at no definite conclusion.
After the lapse of a day or so the eagerly-looked-for Northern Republican paper came. Harry smiled with satisfaction, saying to himself: "Now we shall hear the thing talked about right."
The article was headed, "A Crime Against Freedom." Harry now thought that the article was going to gibbet Dorlan Warthell for having committed a crime against the freedom of the Negro by refusing to longer affiliate with the party that gave him freedom. He re-read the caption, "A Crime Against Freedom." "Yes, yes; only it ought to be 'An Unpardonable Crime,' for that is what it was." Eager to feast on the invectives to be hurled at Dorlan, he stood still on the street corner and began to read:
"The United States of America is a government ruled by the duly ascertained will of a majority of its citizens. Each qualified citizen has the right of casting one vote in support of whatever side of an issue that pleases him. Each citizen has the further right to use all legitimate means in his power to induce other citizens to cast their votes as he casts his.
"The right of advocacy is, if possible, more sacred than the right to vote, for the votes of fellow citizens go well nigh the whole length in shaping a man's environments. Since the votes of others are the majority influence in determining a man's environments, it is manifestly unjust to deny him the opportunity of influencing these votes. He who strikes at freedom of speech strikes at the corner-stone of our republic, and, to our view, commits the greatest crime that a citizen can commit against a government.