Read The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South Page 26

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MAN OF THE HOUR

  The editor prepared to launch his campaign with the utmost care. He invitedthe Executive Committee of his party to meet in his office. The leaderswere excited. They knew Norton too well to doubt that he had something bigto suggest. Some of them came from distant sections of the state, threehundred miles away, to hear his plans.

  He faced the distinguished group of leaders calmly, but every man presentfelt the deep undercurrent of excitement beneath his words.

  "With your cooperation, gentlemen," he began, "we are going to sweep thestate this time by an overwhelming majority----"

  "That's the way to talk!" the Chairman shouted.

  "Four years ago," he went on, "we were defeated for the first time sincethe overthrow of the negro government under the Reconstruction regime. Thisdefeat was brought about by a division of the whites under the Socialisticprogram of the Farmers' Alliance. Gradually the black man has forcedhimself into power under the new regime. Our farmers only wished his votesto accomplish their plans and have no use for him as an officeholder. Therank and file of the white wing, therefore, of the allied party in power,are ripe for revolt if the Negro is made an issue."

  The Committee cheered.

  "I propose to make the Negro the only issue of this campaign. There will beno half-way measures, no puling hesitation, no weakness, and it will be afight to the death in the open. The day for secret organizations has gonein Southern history. There is no Black League to justify a reorganizationof the Klan. But the new Black League has a far more powerful organization.Its mask is now philanthropy, not patriotism. Its weapon is the lure ofgold, not the flash of Federal bayonets. They will fight to divide thewhite race on this vital issue.

  "Here is our danger. It is real. It is serious. But we must meet it. Thereis but one way, and that is to conduct a campaign of such enthusiasm, ofsuch daring and revolutionary violence if need be, that the little henchmenand sycophants of the Dispensers of the National Poor Funds will be awedinto silence.

  "The leadership of such a campaign will be a dangerous one. I offer you myservices without conditions. I ask nothing for myself. I will accept nohonors. I offer you my time, my money, my paper, my life if need be!"

  The leaders rose as one man, grasped Norton's hand, and placed him incommand.

  No inkling of even the outlines of his radical program was allowed to leakout until the hour of the meeting of the party convention. The delegateswere waiting anxiously for the voice of a leader who would sound the noteof victory.

  And when the platform was read to the convention declaring in simple, boldwords that the time had come for the South to undo the crime of theFifteenth Amendment, disfranchise the Negro and restore to the Nation thebasis of white civilization, a sudden cheer like a peal of thunder sweptthe crowd, followed by the roar of a storm. It died away at last in wavesof excited comment, rose again and swelled and rose higher and higher untilthe old wooden building trembled.

  Again and again such assemblies had declared in vague terms for "WhiteSupremacy." Campaign after campaign which followed the blight of negro ruletwenty years before had been fought and won on this issue. But no man orparty had dared to whisper what "White Supremacy" really meant. There wasno fog about this platform. For the first time in the history of the partyit said exactly what was meant in so many words.

  Thoughtful men had long been weary of platitudes on this subject. The Negrohad grown enormously in wealth, in numbers and in social power in the pasttwo decades. As a full-fledged citizen in a Democracy he was a constantmenace to society. Here, for the first time, was the announcement of adefinite program. It was revolutionary. It meant the revision of theconstitution of the Union and a challenge to the negro race, and all hissentimental allies in the Republic for a fight to a finish.

  The effect of its bare reading was electric. The moment the Chairman triedto lift his voice the cheers were renewed. The hearts of the people hadbeen suddenly thrilled by a great ideal. No matter whether it meant successor failure, no matter whether it meant fame or oblivion for the man whoproposed it, every intelligent delegate in that hall knew instinctivelythat a great mind had spoken a bold principle that must win in the end ifthe Republic live.

  Norton rose at last to advocate its adoption as the one issue of thecampaign, and again pandemonium broke loose--now they knew that he hadwritten it! They suspected it from the first. Instantly his name was on athousand lips in a shout that rent the air.

  He stood with his tall figure drawn to its full height, his face unearthlypale, wreathed in its heavy shock of iron-gray hair and waited, withoutrecognizing the tumult, until the last shout had died away.

  His speech was one of passionate and fierce appeal--the voice of therevolutionist who had boldly thrown off the mask and called his followersto battle.

  Yet through it all, the big unspoken thing behind his words was the magicthat really swayed his hearers. They felt that what he said was great, butthat he could say something greater if he would. As he had matured in yearshe had developed this reserved power. All who came in personal touch withthe man felt it instinctively with his first word. An audience, with itssimpler collective intelligence, felt it overwhelmingly. Yet if he haddared reveal to this crowd the ideas seething in his brain behind thesimple but bold political proposition, he could not have carried them withhim. They were not ready for it. He knew that to merely take the ballotfrom the negro and allow him to remain in physical touch with the whiterace was no solution of the problem. But he was wise enough to know thatbut one step could be taken at a time in a great movement to separatemillions of blacks from the entanglements of the life of two hundred years.

  His platform expressed what he believed could be accomplished, and theconvention at the conclusion of his eloquent speech adopted it byacclamation amid a scene of wild enthusiasm.

  He refused all office, except the position of Chairman of the ExecutiveCommittee without pay, and left the hall the complete master of thepolitics of his party.

  Little did he dream in this hour of triumph the grim tragedy the day's workhad prepared in his own life.