Joseph Andrew Lister had been an itinerant Methodist preacher and later organizer for a fraternal society, before the inspiration came to him to revive a secret society for the reformation of humanity and the establishment of a more perfect justice on earth. He had been born on a farm in northern Georgia and had been obliged to rise at four o’clock every morning to begin the day’s chores. He hated farm life and, having at the age of seven, attended an Evangelistic meeting, presided over by a fiery preacher, decided to find solace in religion.
His parents, who were very religious, and an uncle, who ran a small store in a neighboring town, scraped together enough to send Joseph through a seminary, where he applied himself with such zeal that he led all his classes. He knew both testaments almost by heart and found in them the epitome of all wisdom. When not studying he was continually composing sermons and delivering them, under his breath in his room, or aloud in the fields or on the street. At sixteen he come home on Sunday to preach at the church where he had been confirmed and which his parents attended, to their inexpressible pride.
He might have continued to serve as a minister, assisting his parents with the less arduous duties of the farm between sermons, had he not been induced to join a fraternal society in his thirty-fifth year. He suddenly got an insight into a new world. The idea of fraternal association and benevolence in a lay organization fired his imagination and he saw in it a greater field for spreading practical Christianity. The position of organizer, besides, was somewhat more remunerative, and so, when it was offered him, he abandoned the pulpit. He was fairly successful in gaining new members, won a reputation as a fiery talker and was looked upon as a person of superior learning and godliness among his associates. These qualities alone would not have sufficed to build up the Trick Track Tribe had not the more practical genius of Griffith pointed the way. Lister remained, however, the figurehead and mouthpiece of the organization which he had been unable to build, while Griffith, the guiding genius, remained more or less in the background.
“Good morning, brother Pinkney,” said the Rev. Mr. Lister in orotund tones. “Isn’t this one of our initiates? Ah, yes, Captain Hamilton. I am delighted to enroll you in our Tribe. ‘I have an errand to thee, O captain.’” He smiled. “The Tribe is a military organization, a mighty host. And we need captains to spread the word.”
The Headman shook hands warmly with both Hamilton and Pinkney. Griffith, who had been leaning back in a chair, arose and followed his example.
“Let us be seated.” Robert noticed how the Headman’s eyes glowed, how the corners of his lips turned down and how he habitually pressed the tips of his fingers together. A sincere man, a man fairly burning with religious zeal. “In recruiting this magnificent army that is to bear the message of the Trick Track Tribe to every portion of the continent, we are in need of captains, even as the Kings of Israel needed captains of their hundreds.”
He complimented Robert magnificently on fighting the hosts of the enemy and now girding up his loins again to renew the fight for godliness here.
Robert, he judged, did not know all about the Tribe, but he must take some of its mission on faith. No doubt he knew its main objects. White supremacy. Noah had begot Shem, Ham and Japheth. God had created men, black and white—the white to be supreme, the black to be ruled. The purity of womanhood. Men and women who feared God and who kept His commandments. Patriotism. Something about money changers in the Temple.
Griffith, whose quick eye had been traveling back and forth between the minister and Robert, leaned forward and pointed his finger at the desk.
“It’s this way, Hamilton,” he said. “Pinkney has probably told you and I’ve said something about it—we’re planning our big drive, to expand simultaneously all over the country. We need men of standing to organize branches. We want to hit the big places in the North. Chicago and St. Louis are important centers now, because a lot of niggers have been imported there during the war. Chicago seems to be the logical center for the Middle West. We’ve had a man there for a few weeks looking over the field, and we’d like—that is, we would be delighted to have you accept a position as a Grand Bogey—that’s a district manager. You’d work out of Chicago. There’s an office there now under a different name—the Dearborn Statistical Bureau.”