“I’ve been brought up by a Negro mammy and our family’s had colored servants. They stuck to us through the Civil War and after. There is a place for that kind of nigger—the good nigger, the nigger who knows his level and keeps it, the nigger who respects white authority and white supremacy. To him the Southerner’s heart is always open. He’ll find him the best friend in the world. But there’s no place for the smart nigger, the white-collared nigger, the nigger who wants what he calls equal rights.
“What does France or, for that matter, the North, know about the colored man? We here, in defense of white supremacy, pure womanhood and law and order, know that we have to make the nigger walk the mark. We know that the strong arm of justice—but the white man’s justice, with bullet, noose and torch, if need be—is the one thing that will keep this country from being overrun by an inferior race. It is a case of ruling or being ruled. We have had our experience, a brief one, at being ruled, by niggers and carpetbaggers after the war. We’re through.
“Maybe you don’t know what the colored races are doing? Japan coming into the conference on equal terms with the great Christian nations. The Hindus revolting. The Turks ready to strike back at the white nations which have shut her back into Asia, where she belongs, and spreading the doctrine of Islam throughout the brown and the black world of Asia and Africa. And now the same thing in America. The colored races outnumber us. Only our brains, our ability to rule, by word and by sword, keeps us on top. But let us once relax our grip, let the nigger only make the United States the mulatto paradise of which he dreams, and the agitator and nigger lover will wish to God he’d never started. The Red, the Yellow, the Brown and the Black people, outnumbering us ten to one, will rise like a black wave—dark water, that’s it—and sweep the white world away.”
Hamilton sat flushed and conscious of the glances directed at him. Pinkney had addressed all his remarks to Robert, as though he were the attacker of the white race and himself the defender. Robert was not particularly keen for an argument, especially with a guest in his own house, for the discussion had grown into that now and threatened to become even more heated. He noticed that Margaret’s eyes were intent upon Pinkney. He was tired from traveling and wished to be alone. Confound these receptions anyway! Why didn’t Pinkney change the subject or yield the floor to someone else? A score of answers came to him. He wondered what Dorothy was doing. He fell to comparing her with Margaret.
He was conscious of murmuring a few hazy affirmations or denials to Pinkney, while his mind was somewhere else. “Well, perhaps”; or “I don’t know about that.” He heard some one making apologies—not exactly apologies, but speaking about his services overseas and complimenting him. They were saying that he was all right anyway and that he was simply taking a side for an argument. Pinkney was still talking. Margaret was still hanging on to his words. He was quoting Du Bois. He was telling Hamilton to read him. He was telling him about diverse threats against the peace of the white world by more or less responsible writers of color. He was quoting Japanese militarists and Hindu pacifists as well as Georgia blacks.
“No, we need you, Hamilton, Captain Hamilton, in the fight for a higher and purer Americanism,” Pinkney was saying. “We need your type to carry on our fight for white supremacy, for the protection of pure womanhood”—his eyes were flashing proudly at Margaret. Hamilton was watching his little gestures without catching all the words. But for some time the circle had broken up into smaller groups and now Pinkney was simply inviting Robert to see him in his office at his earliest convenience. There was an arrangement he wished to discuss which might prove profitable.
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Hamilton, “I’ll drop in,” although he wondered how Pinkney could possibly discuss a profitable arrangement of any kind with him.
XX
Becoming reacquainted with the family and the city was an adventure. During his absence, he noted, the help had been cut down to Mammy Chloe and George. With Virginia Ruth living in New Orleans and himself away from home, the wants of the Hamiltons were really very simple, in spite of their standing in society. They had given up all the horses but one and had kept only the touring car.
“We don’t need much and it simplifies things,” Mr. Hamilton had explained. “You see, your mother is getting, well, is getting to the point where she wishes to be free from the responsibilities of managing a large household and we have even been considering selling the house—we’ve been offered a good price—and renting an apartment.”