Chapter V: Part 5

"Perhaps I should say because of you. Can't you see the reason in his eyes every time he looks at you? I can."

"You are mistaken there, my dear. I happen to know that Mr. Rutledge loves, or once loved, a young woman who has greatly disappointed him."

"How?"

"He has learned that her family--and perhaps she--is impossible."

"How did you know of his love for the girl?"

"He told me himself," Elise answered with a nonchalant air that proved her an actress of the finest art.

"He did! You were playing with fire, Elise. The sympathetic 'other girl' is always in a dangerous role. Did he tell you of his disappointment also?"

"Oh, no. But that was--and is--evident."

"But the girl? Was she really--nice--better than her people?"

"Yes. No--yes--that is, nice. Of course you know Mr. Rutledge would not love a woman who was not--nice."

"Oh, certainly; but if he was really disappointed in her, all the more reason he might find a solace in your smiles."

"It was her family rather than herself, I think. He is uncertain about her--is afraid to love her."

"He does seem to have an uncertain look at times that has puzzled me. I think you are responsible for some of his uncertainty, however; or perhaps the other girl makes him uncertain about you. If it were not for her you would have to look to your defences.... He must have loved her very much or he could not stand the temptation you are to him.... I'm glad you've solved the riddle, but very sorry you told me. I have liked Mr. Rutledge; but I despise any man who would not brush aside all obstacles to marry the woman he loves and who loves him. Don't you?"

"Oh," said Elise uncertainly, "but, really, it was--it may have been--because she did not love him. I do not think he lacks courage--exactly. He simply would not--pursue--the young woman because her father's--because the--the obstacle was--seemed--insurmountable,--but really I must not be violating confidences. There is no reason why you should not at least respect him, Lola. His course is not without some justification, for the objection, from his point of view, is--vital."

"But what if the girl loves him? Does she love him?"

"Really, Lola, he--he did not inform me--whether she does or not. He has not made the slightest reference to the subject, nor spoken the smallest of confidences to me since that summer on the St. Lawrence.... I think he regrets ever having told me anything about his--heart's affairs. I suppose I should not repeat them--they were spoken under peculiar circumstances."

"There is nothing peculiar, my dear. It is easy to see why a man who is not free to make love to you will choose the next best thing and talk of love with you.... You would better be careful of Mr. Rutledge, however, for I fear his loyalty to that first love totters on its throne every time he looks into your gray eyes. You must not shatter his faith in his own faithfulness."

*CHAPTER XV*

The second morning's papers were aflame with the news of it! President Phillips, true to his outspoken character, himself had called in the Associated Press representative immediately on his return to Washington and dictated a concise statement of all the circumstances leading to Mr. Baxter's resignation. The Secretary's house was besieged by reporters, but all were referred to the White House for information. The daily newspapers featured the item in every conceivable style of display head-lines, and the affair was a nine-day sensation in Washington and a reverberating tempest throughout the South.

Evans Rutledge by the force of his genius, his wide knowledge of men and affairs and the accuracy of his political information had gone rapidly toward the front rank in his profession. He was now the leading editorial writer on the _Washington Mail_, an anti-administration organ.

Of that paper Elise sought the first issue with surreptitious eagerness. She picked it up fully expecting to read quite the most scathing philippic she had ever seen in print. She was surprised to find that the former correspondent had put off his extravagances for a more judicial editorial manner. She recognized his work by several phrases that had been in the _Chicago American_ article.

The editorial was severe, but dignified and fairly respectful. Rutledge commended Secretary Baxter for his prompt and emphatic refusal to lunch with a negro even though at the table of a President of the United States and at the President's personal invitation or "command." He said the fact that Mr. Phillips had intended no insult made the insult no less real; and that Baxter had done the only possible thing--the duel being no longer in vogue--declined and resigned.

He went on to say that there was an irreconcilable difference between the Northern and the Southern ideas of the social equality of the races; that the Southern man's idea was bred in the bone, and no amount of argument or abuse or lofty advice from the Northern press, or boyish impulsiveness in the President's chair, could change that idea one iota; that while their fears sometimes might be lulled to sleep, might be forgotten like other ills in the interest or excitement of other concerns, the black peril was their great Terror in both their waking and sleeping hours, and even when asleep they slept upon their arms.

Elise read that in face of this Terror all other questions were insignificant, and all arguments, prejudices, passions, _loves and hates_ (she put her fingertip on the words) among Southern gentlemen melted away or were fused into a mighty and unalterable sentiment to go down to death rather than to permit social intermingling with the negro race.

The editorial concluded that the Southern feeling on this subject was ineradicable, and was so deep-seated and universal that it became a great Fact which any man of fair discretion and sensible purpose would have recognized and reckoned with; that no President with an abiding sense of the proprieties would have proposed the luncheon to Baxter, and no gentleman of the South would have hesitated for a moment in declining the insulting invitation. The subject was dismissed with the prediction that the cause of the negro immediate and remote would be damaged immeasurably by this act of the impulsive gentleman in the White House who would take the Southern situation by the seat of the trousers as though it were a self-willed small boy pouting in a cellar and yank it incontinently up the Phillips stairs of progress.

There was no other subject discussed in hotel lobbies, committee-rooms or wherever else two or more men were gathered together on the day after the facts were known. In the afternoon in one of the committee-rooms of the Senate, Senators Ruffin and Killam, Representatives Smith and Calhoun of Killam's State, and Representative Hazard of a New York City district, were ventilating their views on the matter when Rutledge joined them, on the hunt for Calhoun.

The comments on the President's negro luncheon were all adverse, though expressed in terms of varying elegance and force from the keen and polished irony of Mr. Ruffin to Mr. Killam's brutal outbursts and picturesque profanity. Mr. Hazard, not having the same sectional view-point as the others, though of the same political creed, was an interested listener. Senator Ruffin referred to the editorial in _The Mail_ and drew Evans into the discussion.

The young man, glad to be untrammelled by editorial discretion, gave free rein to his indignation, but in deference to Mr. Hazard's presence was careful to make some allowance and excuses for the opinion of Northern people on the matter of social amenities to negroes. However, to compensate for this concession and leave no doubt of his opinion, he was even more picturesque than Mr. Killam, if not so profane--and consequently more forcible, Hazard thought--in paying his respects to Mr. Phillips' negro policy.

But Senator Killam resented even the suggestion of excuse for Northern opinion, and opened up an even more choice and outrageous assortment of profanity and invective. Rutledge, Calhoun and Senator Ruffin were ashamed at his disregard of ordinary decencies, while Hazard assumed a look of polite amusement. Mr. Killam's satellite, Smith, however, was vastly tickled at his master's performance, and took pains to show his surpassing admiration. Smith was a raw-boned, half-washed giant with long hair that never knew a shampoo, who owed his election to Congress to a gift of stump-speaking and a consistent devotion to Senator Killam's political fortunes. He usually kept quiet when his chief was there to speak. He did so on that afternoon till, carried away by Mr. Killam's extravagances about niggers in white dining-rooms, he blurted out:

"Yes; I suppose now Miss Elise Phillips will be getting sweet on Doctor Woods. The nig--"

Smash!

Rutledge struck him on the point of the jaw and he fell in an awkward heap between a chair and the wall. He was up in a moment growling like a mastiff, but was restrained by Calhoun and Hazard. Rutledge was standing perfectly still, his thumbs in his trousers pockets, showing no excitement save in the glint of his eye. Smith was muttering his desire to fight it out. He could not talk plainly, for the blow had unhinged his loosely clacking jaw. Hazard, Killam and Calhoun held him by force till he was quiet. It would have been impossible to prevent his forcing a further clash perhaps if Senator Ruffin had not insisted on ending the matter just there.

"Gentlemen!" he said, "this must stop right here. None of us can afford to pursue the miserable affair further. We should all be ashamed that a young lady's name has been used in this discussion at all, and especially in such a manner was it unpardonable! Mr. Smith certainly forgot himself; and while Mr. Rutledge acted from a chivalrous impulse he will learn when he is older that a blow usually advertises rather than suppresses an insult to a woman."

It began to dawn upon Mr. Smith by this time that he had committed a woeful breach of good manners, and with a parvenu's awe of "propriety" he was more than anxious to have the affair hushed up. None the less did he wish to keep secret his knockdown. He got out as quietly as possible in search of a surgeon. Rutledge retired with Calhoun, who slapped him on the back as they went down the corridor and whispered, "Good old boy! Served him right, the damn dog."

Senator Ruffin sent for the attendant who had left the committee-room as soon as quiet was restored, and bought his silence with a five-dollar bill. This honest man was true to his promise to keep his mouth shut, but he overlooked informing the Senator that he had already given the first of his co-labourers he met in the hall a fragmentary account of the mix-up. He had given the names only of Senators Ruffin and Killam, as he did not know the others, all of whom he thought were members of the Lower House.

The reporters were on the trail in an hour. They interviewed the Senators, but these were dumb. They found that the Senate attendant who had his information second-hand was the only source of news supply. What this fellow lacked in knowledge, however, he supplied out of his imagination; and the details grew and multiplied as different reporters interviewed him. At best there was much to be supplied by the young gentlemen of the press, and the result was as many different stories as there were men on the job. The nearest any of them got to the truth was to say that two Congressmen had been discussing the negro question and had come to blows because some woman's name had been dragged in, and that one had broken the other's jaw. This much in the evening papers.

By the next morning the newspaper ferrets had located all the actors and eye-witnesses and gave their names to the public. Fortunately the attendant had not caught Smith's remark but only his rebuke by Senator Ruffin. So that the public knew only that Evans Rutledge had unset or broken the jaw of Congressman Smith because of some improper use of a young lady's name. Whose, none of the gentlemen would say.

* * * * *

Evans Rutledge was in a fever of anxiety lest that name should get to the public. He was sure that he could not face Elise again if it did. Senator Ruffin's rebuke had sunk deep into his heart and he felt more guilty than Smith. He looked over the morning and evening papers very carefully to see whether they had discovered the young woman, before he finally decided to go to Senator DeVale's as he had promised Lola. When he arrived he found, beside Elise, only Alice Mackenzie, Hazard and young MacLane, an under-secretary of the British embassy. Others who were to come failed to appear.

Elise was not pleased with the situation. She was quite willing to be ordinarily civil to Mr. Rutledge, but she knew that nothing could separate MacLane and Alice Mackenzie, and that Hazard had known Lola so long and had proposed to her so regularly and insistently that he was for her or for nobody. It looked a little too much, therefore, as if she had chosen Evans for her very own for the evening. She did not want him to think such a thing possible. She remembered his point-blank editorial utterance that those small sentiments--loves and hates--melted away before exhibitions of social equality with negroes--so at least she construed it--and she could not but resent it, though she would not admit she troubled herself to do that.

"Now, young people," said Lola, "as the programme has been spoiled we will make this an evening of do-as-you-please."

"Good, very good," commented Hazard. "In that case you will please to come over here and take this chair and let's finish that conversation we were having last night when the unpronounceable Russian took you away from me."

"I am afraid that conversation is a serial story," she laughed, taking the chair he placed for her.

MacLane asked Alice Mackenzie some vague question about a song, which only she could interpret, and they by common impulse went through the wide door to the piano in the back parlour, where after she had hummed a short love ballad for him to piano accompaniment they dropped into a pianissimo duet of love without accompaniment.

Elise, feeling that she was being thus thrown at Mr. Rutledge's head, came to the mark with spirit and kept him guessing for an hour. She resented his possible inference that she had chosen him for an evening's _tete-a-tete_, and set about to show him that such was not the fact by a display of perversity and brilliance which dazzled while it irritated him. She would assume for a moment an intimately friendly, even confiding, manner that like the breath of the honeysuckle at his Pacolet plantation home would set his senses a-swim,--and in the next moment chill his glowing heart with the iciest of conventional reserve or answer his sincerest speeches with the light disdain and indifference of a mocking spirit. At one time she would kindle his admiration for her quickness of thought and keenness of repartee; and again appear so dull and careless that he must needs explain his own essays at wit.

Her caprices, so plainly intentional yet inexplicable, exasperated him almost to the point of open rebellion, and the more evident his perturbation became, the more spirit she put into the game. She won him back from a half-dozen fits of resentful impatience to the very edge of intoxication,--only to bait him again more outrageously.

Lola DeVale, perfectly familiar with the theme of Oliver Hazard's serial, found time even while admiring Hazard's ability to decorate his story in ever-changing and ever pleasing colours, to note that Elise was giving Rutledge a tempestuous hour.

"It's a shame for her to treat him so," she said to Hazard, interpreting her meaning by a nod toward Elise and Evans.

"I hadn't noticed. What's she doing to him?"

"I believe he loves her, and she has been treating him shamefully all evening."

"So that was it," murmured Hazard. "She certainly ought to be good to him."

"Beg pardon, I didn't understand you," said Lola.

"I said she ought to be good to him."

"I heard that. But the other remark you made?"

Hazard caught himself, and looked at Lola steadily. "I was so bold as to express an opinion--which had not been requested--and to aver that--she--er--ought to be good to him," he repeated with an over-done blankness of countenance.

"You come on," said Lola as she rose. "We are going to scare up something for you people to eat," she remarked to the others.

"Now, sir," she said when she had gotten him into the dining-room, "I'll see what sort of a reporter I could be. Stand right there, and look at me. Now.--why did Mr. Rutledge knock Congressman Smith down? No, no, stand perfectly still--and no evasion."

"What are you talking about?" asked Hazard.

"Don't be silly," the girl said impatiently. "I read something more than the society and fashion columns in the newspapers. Tell me. Why did he break Mr. Smith's jaw?--who was the young lady?--and what did Mr. Smith say of her? I know it was Elise; but tell me about it--and hurry, for those people are getting hungry."

"I must not tell that, Lola," Hazard answered her seriously.

"A man should have no secrets from his--proposed--wife."

"Make it _promised_ wife and I'll agree," Hazard replied eagerly, taking her hand.

"No; we'll leave it _proposed_ awhile longer," she answered him archly. "I've become so accustomed to it that way that I'd hate to change it." The smile she gave him as she slowly drew away her hand would have bribed any man to treason.

"But we will compromise it," Lola continued. "I will be real careful of your honour. I'll ask you a question, and if the answer is _yes_ you needn't answer it. Now--was it not an insult to Elise that Mr. Rutledge resented?"

"Lola, when you said that word _wife_ a moment since you were--heavenly."

"Hush your nonsense, Ollie.... I knew it was Elise when you said that thing in the parlour.... Did Mr. Rutledge really break his jaw?"

"Oh, it was beautiful, beautiful," said Hazard with enthusiasm. "Such a clean left-hander! Dropped him like a beef--he's big as two of Rutledge--in a wink--before he could finish his sentence,--the low-bred dog! Yes, beautifully done, beaut--"

"Here they come," said Lola. She was busily breaking out the stores from the sideboard when Elise and Rutledge appeared.

"Here, Mr. Hazard, take this dish in to that mooning young couple in the back parlour. And you, Mr. Rutledge, just force them to eat enough of these pickles to keep their tempers in equilibrium."

* * * * *

"Oh, my dear," she exclaimed when the two men were gone, "I've discovered the name of the young woman Mr. Rutledge fought for. Ollie let it get away from him--not the name, but I figured it out. And for whom do you suppose it was?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," answered Elise in all truthfulness.

"Of all women you should. I told you I could see it in his eyes,"' laughed Lola.

"Not for me?" Elise cried in genuine surprise.

"For you."

"What did the man say?" she asked quickly.

"Some caddish thing, of course. Men are so nasty. I didn't have time to get the particulars before you and Mr. Rutledge followed us in here. But Ollie says it was just b-e-a-u-t-iful the way Mr. Rutledge dropped him--and he's three times as big as Mr. Rutledge, too--"

"We've tried moral suasion, strategy, force, every expedient," interrupted Hazard as he and Rutledge came back into the dining-room, "but the Scotch lass and her laddie positively decline to be fed by us. They are fully supplied by their own ravings--ho! don't throw that salad at me!"

"Here, take a dose of celery quick--a biblical pun like that is a too serious tax upon the simple Congressional brain," said Lola.

Hazard looked foolish, and he felt like a fool; but what real manly lover outside the story-books was ever else than foolish when love's fit was upon him?

None of the quartette in the dining-room was the least bit hungry, and it was but a very few moments till the young hostess led the way back to the parlour, Elise and Rutledge following slowly. When they reached the stairway Elise seated herself on the third step and by the gesture with which she arranged her skirts invited Evans to a seat below her.

"Look at that," said Lola to Hazard, glancing over her shoulder as they passed into the parlour. "Now she's going to be good to him."

"In the name of heavens, woman, you didn't tell her!"

"Why not? She's the very one that ought to know. She will not inform the reporters."

"But what will she think of me?" asked Hazard in some concern.

"You? Why, you don't count! You are only a pawn in their game." As his eyes flashed she added, with a bewildering tilt of her chin: "I promise to make good all your losses."

"May my losses prosper!" prayed Hazard audibly.

* * * * *

Elise used a makeshift conversation with Rutledge till she heard the humming accents of the others well going, and then--

"Mr. Rutledge," she said. "I wish to speak to you of your defence of my name when that Mr. Smith--"

The suddenness of it routed all Rutledge's cool senses.

"Oh, Miss Phillips," he broke in, "I am so sorry that I should have done anything to accentuate that abominable fellow's remark. I am so heartily ashamed of my unpardonable boyish thoughtlessness and lack of consideration that I cannot find words to express my contempt for myself," etc., to the same effect, without giving Elise a chance to speak, till she was surprised in turn, then amused, then annoyed. Finally, in order to bring him to a reasonable coherency, she interrupted his self-denunciations.

"What did Mr. Smith say of me, Mr. Rutledge?"

"I can't repeat that to you, Miss Phillips."

"You must if the words are decent. Tell me at once. I must know."

"He simply coupled your name with that of--Doctor Woods--the negro who--lunched at your home in Cleveland."

Evans forced out the last half-dozen words with a visible effort--which the girl may have misinterpreted.

"Oh!" She dropped her face in her hands. She had not dreamed of that explanation. But she gathered herself in a moment. Every pennyweight of her admirable pride came to her support. At the mention of "negro luncheon" she was on guard against Rutledge, her kindly purpose forgotten. She sat straight up and with a perfect dignity said:

"I thank you, Mr. Rutledge, for your well-meant efforts in my behalf, but my father is abundantly able both to choose the guests who shall dine at his table, and to protect my name, whenever indeed it shall need a champion." She closed the discussion by rising.

Evans did not tarry long. He was too badly scattered. The other guests soon followed, except Elise, who remained overnight at Lola's insistence.

"Come right up to my room and tell me all about it.... What _did_ you do to that miserable man? You ought to be spanked, Elise."

"I did nothing to him."

"And why didn't you? I said to Ollie when you sat down on the stairs, 'Now she's going to be good to him.' Did you tell him you knew?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He--apologized," said Elise with a nervous laugh.

"_Apologized_! For mercy's sake!--and what else?"

"I accepted his apology--on condition he would not do it again;" and she broke out into real mirth at sight of Lola's scandalized face.

*CHAPTER XVI*

If _The Mail's_ editorial was conservative, other papers were not so respectful. It was worse even than Mrs. Phillips had predicted. All over the South the papers ran the whole gamut of indignation and abuse from lofty scorn all the way down to plain editorial fits. The entire Southern press, Democratic, Republican, and Independent, except a few sheets edited by negroes, were of one mind on the subject of negroes dining with white men. Papers that had supported Mr. Phillips heartily were all severe, some of them bitter, in their denunciations.

The Wordyfellow element in the school-fund fight welcomed the President's act as a boon from heaven. They raised a howl that was heard in every nook and corner of the Southland, and that by the very thundering shock of its roar broke through and drove back the forces of the negro's friends. The weak-willed were borne down and the timid and the doubting were carried away by the purely physical force of noise or by having lashed to fury their sometimes latent but ever-present terror of the Black Peril. And not only the weak, indeed, and the timid and the doubting went in crowds to the Wordyfellow camp, but strong men, fearless men, men of the most philanthropic impulses toward the negro race, men who had fought openly and ably the Wordyfellow propaganda, became silent and began to waver, or deserted the negro's cause and unhesitatingly espoused the other side.

In vain did the negro's staunchest friends proclaim their indignation at the President's lunching with Bishop Martin and Doctor Woods, and try to convince their people that the South should be true to its own interests and do simple justice to the negro despite any act of his fool friends. It was useless. The Southern people--the floating vote, the balance of power--were in no mood to draw fine distinctions, nor to listen to theories in face of facts. A careless hand had struck the wavering balance, and the beam went steadily down.

Reports of defections began to come rapidly to Mr. Phillips. Those from the negroes in the South told of the losses faithfully, but gave any other than the true reason for the change of sentiment; while letters from his white advisers told him more or less plainly that his negro luncheon had done the damage and that the cause was as good as lost.

These reports roused the President's fighting blood. He sent for Mackenzie.

"Read that stack of letters, Mac, and you will see that the negroes in the South are in a fair way to be trampled to death. Now I must head this thing off, and I want your help. I am determined to defeat that Wordyfellow movement if there is power in the Federal government. I'll not be content to have the laws annulled by the Federal Supreme Court after they are passed, even if that can be done. We must find some way to win this fight _in the elections_ and thus give the lie to these prophecies that that luncheon has lost the battle."

So he and the astute Mackenzie rubbed their heads together for a week: and finally came to a remedy so simple that they were ashamed not to have thought of it at once. Simple indeed--if they could apply it. In less than another week, Mr. Hare, the recognized administration mouthpiece in the House, introduced a bill appropriating moneys from the national treasury to the States in proportion to population for purposes of public education. The milk in this legislative cocoanut was a provision that the money apportioned to each State should be so distributed among the individual public schools of the State that, when taken together with the State's own appropriation, all the schools in the State should be open for terms of equal length.

From statistics carefully compiled in the office of the Commissioner of Education Mr. Phillips and Mr. Mackenzie had calculated the amount of the appropriation so that if the Southern States adopted the Wordyfellow plan the negro race would get virtually the whole of the appropriation from the national government.

Elise Phillips, persuading herself that she was on the lookout for reasons to despise Mr. Rutledge, regularly read the editorial column of _The Mail_.

There one morning she learned that "the immediate effect of the introduction of the Hare Bill in the House has been to transfer the fight from the South to Washington. True, the Wordyfellow speakers and press have raised a more ear-splitting howl, and opened up with every gun of argument, appeal, abuse, expletive and rant; but they see clearly that this bill if passed will bring all their schemes to naught, and that the issue has been taken out of their hands. It is tantalizingly uncertain to them whether the bill will become a law; for there are many incidental questions and considerations which complicate the issue here at Washington. But all men know that when Mr. Phillips sets his head for anything he will move heaven and earth to attain it. Few doubt his power to whip many Representatives and Senators into line or his readiness to wield the whip if the fate of any pet measure demands it. There is much of the Jesuit in Mr. Phillips' philosophy of life and action. When he believes a thing is right he believes that no squeamish notion should prevent his bringing it to pass. Keep your eyes on him! It is always interesting to see how he does it."

"Pity he is not a Senator!" Elise commented with scornful impatience as she threw the paper down, "that papa might whip him into becoming modesty!"

* * * * *

At the moment Elise was so delivering her mind, a telegraph boy was handing Rutledge a message. He tore it open and read:

"COLUMBIA, S.C, Jan. 9th, 191-.

"EVANS RUTLEDGE,
"Washington, D.C.

"Exactly how old are you and where do you vote?

"W. D. ROBERTSON."

Evans looked around behind the telegraph-sheet as if seeking an explanation. He gazed quizzically at the messenger-boy, but that young gentleman only grinned and then looked solemn.

"Well," Evans muttered, "what the devil's up Robbie's back now?"

He sat down and thought the thing over awhile. Then he constructed a reply.

"WASHINGTON, Jan. 9th, 191-.

"W. D. ROBERTSON, Atty.-General,
"Columbia, S.C.

"Your telegram received. If it is official I decline to answer. _Entre nous_ I will be thirty-one on the 29th of February at something like twenty minutes past three in the morning--they didn't have a stopwatch in the house. I vote in Cherokee County, Pacolet precinct, generally of late in a cigar-box in the shed-room of Jake Sims's store where Gus Herndon used to run a barber-shop when you and I were young, Maggie. Why? EVANS RUTLEDGE."

"Send that _collect_, youngster. We'll make old Robbie pay for his impertinence."

"Look here, sonny," he called to the boy who had gotten out the door, "bring any answer to that down to the Capitol. I am going to have a look at the Senate."

He was sitting beside Lola DeVale in the members' gallery when the answer came.

"COLUMBIA, S.C, Jan. 9th, 191-.

HON. EVANS RUTLEDGE,
"Washington, D.C.

"Nothing much. The governor of South Carolina simply did not feel like giving a United States Senatorship either to a boy or to a man from another State. He is just mailing your commission as Jones's successor. Don't decline it before you hear the whole story. Congratulations to you.

"W. D. ROBERTSON."

"This has 'an ancient and fish-like smell.' Read it," Rutledge said to Lola when he had recovered from his astonishment sufficiently to speak.

She took the telegram and while she was trying to interpret its import Senator Killam came hurriedly into the gallery and seized upon Rutledge.

"I got a telegram from the governor half an hour ago and have been trying to find you ever since," he exclaimed. "He has appointed you--oh, you have heard, I see. Well, come right down with me. I want to present you to your colleagues."

Evans could doubt no longer, and Lola DeVale had grasped the meaning of it.

"I am so glad to be the first to congratulate you," she said, and he felt the sincerity of her good wishes in her warm hand-grasp. Then Senator Killam carried him off.

* * * * *

"I know it came 'like a bolt from the blue' to you," Robertson wrote to him; "but the whys and wherefores need not mystify you. There cannot be the slightest doubt of your ability to fill the office--full to the brim; and the rest is easy. You know the old man fully intended all along to contest for the place with Jones, whose term would have expired with the old man's term as governor. Jones's demise, however, presented a problem to him that has driven him to the verge of lunacy for a week. He couldn't give himself the commission, of course. He couldn't resign and get it, for the lieutenant-governor has been the avowed supporter of LaRoque for the Senatorship. He couldn't give it to LaRoque or Pressley, for the three of them are too evenly matched.... When he finally came to the idea of appointing some one to fill the vacancy who was clearly not in the running so that the primaries might settle it among the three of them, I suggested you. He jumped at the idea.... The old man has every reason to feel kindly toward you both for your father's sake and for your own excellent work's sake, and he does not doubt your friendliness to himself.... You will have less than six months in which to make a name for yourself, but--perhaps--who can tell? ... I wish I had such an opportunity. I am heartily glad you have it."

* * * * *

Senator Rutledge was pitched right into the middle of the fight on the Hare Bill--and fight it was for him. Senator Killam essayed to take the young man under his wing and chaperone his conduct according to his ideas of the political proprieties, but he found that the junior Senator had a mind of his own, and could not be managed, overawed or bullied. This roused Mr. Killam's ire at once. He wasn't accustomed to it. The dead Senator Jones had never had the effrontery to think for himself; and for this youngster to presume to walk alone was more than Mr. Killam could forgive.

Solely because of Mr. Killam's personal attitude and treatment of him, Rutledge wished it were over and done with long before the finish; but he never lost his nerve.

* * * * *

It seemed that the suspense would be ended quickly when the House under pressure of the rules passed the Hare Bill almost without debate: but when it came before the Senate it was evident at once that those dignitaries would take abundance of time to consider it,--if for no other reason than to prove to themselves they were the greatest deliberative body on earth.

However, with all the Senate's deliberation the very frenzy of the Wordyfellow crowd's screams evidenced their realization that their game was balked--and that, too, in a manner that was maddening: for it left them not the frenzied pleasure of fighting their precious battle against the negro out to the end and going down to harmless defeat in pyrotechnic glory. No; it placed them in a dilemma where they must humiliate themselves by a surrender before the battle, or fight it to a barren victory at the polls, which would not only bring actual benefit to the negro in the South but also give to the Northern States the lion's share of a large appropriation.

Facing this dilemma, they lost heart if they lost nothing of noise. In all of the interested States except Mississippi serious discussion of the question grew less and less rapidly, and was postponed until after the Senate should vote. In Mississippi, however, the tension was increased by the Senate's deliberation because the date set for the election on the proposed Wordyfellow amendment to the State constitution was some time before the Senate would be forced to vote. The Mississippians could not decide for their lives whether they preferred to vote on their amendment first or have the Senate vote first on the bill. With a faint hope that the bill might not pass, they were in obvious difficulties in either case.

Southern Senators were overwhelmed with all manner of conflicting and confusing petitions, and as a result about one half of them favoured the bill for one reason or another, while the other half more or less bitterly opposed it. The discussion, when the bill finally came out of committee, took the widest range,--from the constitutional objections raised by the Texas Senator (whose State, having a large school-fund income, did not need the appropriation) and the savage attacks upon the negro race generally by Senator Killam, to the purely pro-educational reasoning of most of the supporting Senators from the South--among whom was Senator Ruffin--and the pro-negro speech of the young Senator Rutledge.

The adjective _pro-negro_ may give an erroneous impression of Senator Rutledge's ideas. The term is the Senator's own. From his speech in full in the _Congressional Record_ the reader may determine for himself whether the term is apt.

*CHAPTER XVII*

Senator Rutledge gave notice that on February 23d he would address the Senate on the Hare Bill. On that day the galleries were crowded to hear him, his State's delegation in the House was present in a body, accompanied by many other representatives from North and South. No one knew how he would vote, for he had listened much and talked little. He said:

"Mr. President: There have been many terms used on this floor and in the public prints since this bill was introduced, by which to distinguish and define and lay open to public view the motives which are supposed to lie behind the votes that will be cast for and against it.

"We have heard 'unconstitutional,' 'anti-negro,' 'pro-educational,' 'watch-dog of the treasury,' and others equally descriptive if less parliamentary. I have not heard 'pro-negro.'

"So, to save my friends--and enemies, if I have any--the trouble of search and imaginings, I adopt that term, '_pro-negro_,' as descriptive of my attitude toward the matters affected by this bill.

"It is an open secret, Mr. President, that this measure, which bears the non-committal title of 'an act to promote education' is a White House production designed and introduced for the single purpose of defeating what is known as the Wordyfellow school-fund movement in the South generally, more specifically now in the State of Mississippi. Because I think it will accomplish that purpose, both general and special,--because I am 'for the negro,'--for him on his own account,--for his elevation as a race to the highest level which his essential nature in the purposes of God will permit him to attain,--because I believe the success of the Wordyfellow movement would mean his degradation, his hopeless continuance in his present low estate,--because, in a word, I am _pro-negro_; I shall vote for this bill.

"I should despise myself, sir, if I had within me other sentiments toward any man or race of men, and I feel, therefore, that it is not unbecoming in me to arrogate to myself the pure unselfishness of this motive. And yet, sir, if the love of one's race may be called a selfish passion, I must confess that right alongside of this unselfish desire for the negro's welfare, there lies in my heart a selfish passion for the progress, the multiplying prosperity and more abounding happiness of my own people, the white men and women of the South, which desire also with no less power but indeed with compelling forcefulness bids me to oppose the Wordyfellow idea with every faculty and expedient, and therefore to vote for this measure.

"I wish to make it clear at the outset that, while I shall heartily support this White House bill, I give not the slightest credit to the President for having prepared it and sent it here. He deserves none. The bill is a necessity, and as such I vote for it: but the President is the one man who has made it a necessity.

"If he had not injected into the situation his negro luncheon (and to that I will pay my respects before I have finished), my people would have defeated the Wordyfellow movement; for the battle was going our way. It is as little as President Phillips can do now to suggest this method, expensive though it is, to repair the damage he has done the negro's cause in the South. He comes praying us to pay the negro out of the difficulty in which he has involved him, and _as friends of the negro_ there is nothing for us to do but furnish the money, however much we may deplore the Executive folly that makes the outlay imperative.

"Now, Mr. President, let us inquire directly into the merits of the Wordyfellow plan. The proposed amendment to the constitution of Mississippi provides that the school fund shall be divided between the white and negro schools in proportion to the taxes paid to the State by each of the two races for school purposes. As there are six negroes to four whites in the State, and as the negroes pay less than ten per cent of the school taxes, such a division of the school fund will give the white children thirteen days' schooling to the negro's one.

"Such a proposition is illogical, pernicious, insane.

"Look at the logic of it. Governor Wordyfellow defends the general proposition by some scattering statistics which prove to his mind that education generally is not good for the negro; but he justifies the division of the school fund on the basis of contribution upon the supposed principle that the negro will get back all that he pays in and therefore cannot rightly demand more.

"That so-called principle will not hold water a moment. I would say to the gentlemen from the South, Mr. President,--to those who are supporting the Wordyfellow propaganda--that if they proceed on that theory they must give to _every_ man what he pays into the treasury: which means that the State must expend more for the tuition of the sons of the rich than the sons of the poor. If every man has a right to demand for his own children the taxes he pays for school purposes, then the State has no right to tax one man to educate another's child--and the promoters of this idea have pulled down the whole public school system about their ears.

"If such a division is proposed on the ground that no sort of education is good for the negro, and we believe that, then let us take away from the negro by constitutional amendment _all_ the money collected from him by the State for school purposes and give it to the white children. That would be logical, that would be sensible, that would be Scriptural. Let us be logical and sensible and fearless about this matter.

"But I cannot think these leaders of the Wordyfellow forces believe that, Mr. President, though I fear that they have persuaded thousands of their less intelligent following to believe it thoroughly. No, you do not believe it; but you do believe that some particular kinds of education--literary education, for example--is positively harmful to the negro, while some other particular sort--industrial education, perhaps--is beneficial and would uplift the negro race.

"If you admit that,--and it has been conceded on this floor by some of the leaders of the Wordyfellow movement that industrial education is good for the negro and will make a better man and a better citizen of him; then in face of the appalling menace of his ignorance and depravity which have been painted in such lurid colours here, _let us by constitutional amendment give him more than his per capita share of the school tax_. Yes, let us give to him proportionately in keeping with our keenest fears, our wildest terror, of the Black Peril--all if need be--to educate him _in that particular line that will uplift him_ and make a safe citizen of him, in order that we may save ourselves alive and escape the woes of that peril. All education administered by the State is given in the exercise of a sort of quasi police power--to protect itself from the violence of ignorance: and we would be well within an ancient principle if we should lay out extraordinary funds to police the black cesspools that threaten our civic life.

"It is clearly demonstrable, therefore, that upon any theory of the negro's inability or limited ability to be benefited by education, or upon the assumption of its positive hurtfulness to him, the Wordyfellow amendment is absolutely illogical. The whole Wordyfellow proposition is based upon a false assumption in the first place, and the Wordyfellow remedy does not have the merit of being true even to the fictitious Wordyfellow premises. For all this agitation against the education of the negro race proceeds upon the theory that the negro is not altogether a man, that he is without the one aptitude common to all other peoples, white, yellow or red--the disposition to be uplifted in civilization by the spread of a higher intelligence among his race.

"That theory, Mr. President, is false! And while I believe the great majority of my people reject it despite the insistence with which it has been in small measure openly, in large measure indirectly, presented to them for acceptance, I have thought it worth while to inquire closely and specifically into the effect of the _higher literary_ education upon the black men and women who have been so fortunate as to acquire it. I give to the Senators not only as the result of my investigation but as the result of my personal observation as a man brought up in the South, my sincere opinion that education of the negro in the usual literary studies from the kindergarten to the college, as well as along industrial lines, is as a rule beneficial and uplifting to him.

"It is true that a smattering of education in some instances gives a negro the idea that he is to get a living without work, and that such notions would not be wholesome if prevailing among a population which must do manual labour. This need not alarm us, however; for it is not an unusual thing for a college education to give a white boy the same notion. We do not limit his education on that account. In the post-graduate school of Hard Knocks he always finds out--and no less surely will the negro boy of similar delusion learn--especially as education becomes more and more a possession of the masses and not a privilege of the few--that the great majority of men, whether black or white, lettered or unlettered, must work, and work with their hands.

"Let me add, lest I be misunderstood, that while I believe the negro race as a race will be hewers of wood and drawers of water for generations to come, and that education will be beneficial to them as a toiling class, I am not of those who believe that when by education you spoil a negro field-hand you have committed a crime. I have no sympathy with a sentiment that would confine any man to a limited though respectable and honourable work when he has within him the aspiration and the ability to serve his race and his time in broader fields.

"Those, in a nutshell, Mr. President, are the primary reasons why I am opposed to the Wordyfellow movement, and shall vote for this bill. The secondary reasons are hardly less forceful.

"I want this bill passed and passed quickly in order to avoid the pernicious incidental effects of the agitation of this question among my people. It has bred and is breeding antagonisms between the white and black races in the South such as did not result from the horrors of reconstruction or the excitement of negro disfranchisement. In those issues the negro truthfully was told and well may have believed that the white man was driven to protect himself against the ignorance and depravity of the black. In this case, however, the negro feels, and rightly, that the white man would condemn him perpetually to that ignorance and depravity. From the negro's view-point the white man's motive is now what it never was before: base, worse than selfish, wantonly, vindictively cruel.

"Again the propagation of the Wordyfellow idea teaches incidentally that in this democratic country, where by the very nature of our institutions the welfare of each is the welfare of all, where forsooth a Christian civilization has reached its highest development, even here, the strong may desert the weak and leave them to their own pitiful devices and defences.

"It teaches also the doctrine--more potent for evil--that the government may take note of racial classes for the purpose of dealing out its favours and benefits with uneven hands, preferring one to the other. If it may do this when the class differences are racial, it is but half a step to the proposition that it may do so when the differences exist whether they be racial or other. It takes no seer to see that after that proposition--no, _with_ that proposition--comes the deluge.

"Such, Mr. President, are some, not all, of the incidental effects of the propagation of the Wordyfellow idea which clearly and with vast conservatism may be called pernicious. But there is yet another effect which will be inevitable upon the adoption of the Wordyfellow plan, and which has been in large measure produced already by the discussion of it, in the light of which deliberate advocacy of the Wordyfellow idea fairly may be called insane; and that is the severing of all bonds of sympathy and good-will between the races when the negro is told by white men, 'Here, take the pitiful portion that is yours, and go work out your own bitter, black salvation, alone--if you can.'

"All this agitation, all our concern, is predicated upon the deadly menace which this people, numbering one-third of the population of the South and gathered in many sections in overwhelming majorities, is to our civic and industrial happiness and progress: and it does seem the sheerest insanity to sever the bonds of sympathy and helpfulness which now bind the races together, surrender all our interest and right to control in the method of the negro's uplifting, and leave him to develop along any haphazard or dangerous lines without sympathy, respect, or regard for us, our ideas, or our ideals.

"The negro has been enough of a problem and a terror to my people with all our ability to control him through his ignorance, his fears, his affection and his respect for us. We have been careless at times perhaps as to how we made use of these instruments for his management. The more fools we if we now throw away his affection and his respect, cut loose from him entirely, and leave him to develop under teachers of his own race who with distorted vision or prejudiced heart will replace his ignorance with a knowledge at least of his brute strength, and cancel his fears with hate.

"My people give freely hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly to the degraded of other lands in whom they have only the interest which Christians have in universal humanity, and they place in the calendar of the saints the names of the godly men and women who go to work personally to uplift the heathen. I do not think that in their cool senses their Christian impulses, to which is added the motive of self-interest, will permit them to cut off their contributions to and support of any instrumentality which will elevate the degraded in their own land whose depravity is so pregnant with dire possibilities to them. I pray the day to come when, among my people, it shall be thought just as praiseworthy, as noble, as saintly for a Southern white man to give his life and energies to the personal instruction, uplifting and redemption of the negroes in America as of the negroes in Africa or the heathen in any land.

"That prayer, Mr. President, which is sincerely from my heart, brings me to the discussion of President Phillips' negro policy. I shall not expect to see the prayer answered so long as the Chief Executive of this nation shows a disposition to deal so carelessly, so arbitrarily, with such cock-sure flippancy, with the convictions, prejudices if you will, of the brave and generous people who are face to face in their race problem not with a far-away academic question about which they may safely speculate and theorize, but face to face with a present, tangible, appalling issue in whose solution is life or death to them.

"To my people the consequences are so vital that they sometimes are led perhaps beyond what is really necessary in the way of defence,--for any sane man prefers to be doubly guarded against death. So it has been that while they are not favourable to the Wordyfellow plan they have been stampeded to it by the Phillips negro luncheon.