Jr. Thomas Dixon

“ Cameron had brought his memorial, presented a pathetic spectacle. Most of them were old men, who sat in grim silence with nothing to do or say as they watched the rising black tide, their dignity, reserve, and decorum at once the wonder and the shame of the modern world.
At least they knew that the minstrel farce being enacted on that floor was a tragedy as deep and dark as was ever woven of the blood and tears of a conquered people. Beneath those loud guffaws they could hear the death rattle in the throat of their beloved State, barbarism strangling civilization by brute force. ”

“ Society was fused in the white heat of one sublime thought and beat with the pulse of the single will of the Grand Wizard of the Klan of Memphis.
Women and children had eyes and saw not, ears and heard not. Over four thousand disguises for men and horses were made by the women of the South, and not one secret ever passed their lips!
With magnificent audacity, infinite patience, and remorseless zeal, a conquered people were struggling to turn his own weapon against their conqueror, and beat his brains out with the bludgeon he had placed in the hands of their former slaves. ”

“ There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. We can have no inferior servile class, peon or peasant. We must assimilate or expel. The American is a citizen king or nothing. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal. A mulatto citizenship would be too dear a price to pay even for emancipation.”
“Words have no power to express my loathing for such twaddle!” cried Stoneman, snapping his great jaws together and pursing his lips with contempt. ”

“ I’m only too glad of an excuse to save a life when I can. Every drop of blood shed in this war North and South has been as if it were wrung out of my heart. A strange fate decreed that the bloodiest war in human history should be fought under my direction. And I—to whom the sight of blood is a sickening horror—I have been compelled to look on in silent anguish because I could not stop it! ”

“ As the nostrils of his big three-angled nose dilated, the scream of an eagle rang in his voice, his huge ugly hand held the crook of his cane with the clutch of a tiger, his tongue flew with the hiss of an adder, and his big deformed foot seemed to grip the floor as the claw of a beast.
“The life of a political party, gentlemen,” he growled in conclusion, “is maintained by a scheme of subterfuges in which the moral law cuts no figure. As your leader, I know but one law—success. The world is full of fools who must have toys with which to play. ”

“ It was the way the people of Piedmont expressed to him and the world their contempt for the farce of an election he had conducted, and their indifference as to the result he would celebrate with many guns before midnight.
The young people of the town were out in force. Marion was a universal favourite. The grace, charm, and tender beauty of the Southern girl of sixteen were combined in her with a gentle and unselfish disposition. Amid poverty that was pitiful, unconscious of its limitations, her thoughts were always of others, and she was the one human being everybody had agreed to love. ”

“ Talk to me no more of the same race, of the same blood. He is no brother of mine and of no race of mine who crowns the barbarism of treason with the murder of an unarmed husband in the sight of his wife. On the villains who led this rebellion let justice fall swift and relentless. Death to every traitor of the South! Pursue them one by one! Let every door be closed upon them and judgment follow swift and implacable as death! ”

“ The arrest was made so quickly, not a dozen people in town had heard of it. As fast as it was known, people poured into the house, one by one, to express their sympathy. But a greater surprise awaited them.
Within thirty minutes after he had been placed in prison, a Lieutenant entered, accompanied by a soldier and a negro blacksmith who carried in his hand two big chains with shackles on each end.
The doctor gazed at the intruders a moment with incredulity, and then, as the enormity of the outrage dawned on him, he flushed and drew himself erect, his face livid and rigid. ”

“ When Doctor Cameron entered the parlour Stoneman hobbled painfully to meet him, his face ashen, and his breath rattling in his throat as if his soul were being strangled.
“You are my enemy, Doctor,” he said, taking his hand, “but you are a pious man. I have been called an infidel—I am only a wilful sinner—I have slain my own son, unless God Almighty, who can raise the dead, shall save him! You are the man at whom I aimed the blow that has fallen on my head. ”

“ I am with General Grant for peace and reconciliation. What does your lover think of it all? I can feel your anguish. The bill to rob the Southern people of their land, which I hear is pending, would send your sweetheart and mine, our enemies, into beggared exile. What will happen in the South? Riot and bloodshed, of course—perhaps a guerilla war of such fierce and terrible cruelty humanity sickens at the thought. I fear the Rebellion unhinged our father’s reason on some things. He was too old to go to the front; the cannon’s breath would have cleared the air and sweetened his temper. ”

“ The army only moved with swifter spring, tightening its mighty grip on the throat of the bleeding prostrate South.
As the day wore on its gloomy hours, and men began to find speech, they spoke to each other at first in low tones of Fate, of Life, of Death, of Immortality, of God—and then as grief found words the measureless rage of baffled strength grew slowly to madness.
On every breeze from the North came the deep-muttered curses.
Easter Sunday dawned after the storm, clear and beautiful in a flood of glorious sunshine. The churches were thronged as never in their history. ”

“ We can manage the negro,” he said calmly.
“With thousands of your own people disfranchised?”
“The negroes will vote with us, as they worked for us during the war. If they give them the ballot, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
Ben looked at her tenderly, bent near, and whispered:
“Don’t waste your sweet breath talking about such things. My politics is bounded on the North by a pair of amber eyes, on the South by a dimpled little chin, on the East and West by a rosy cheek. Words do not frame its speech. Its language is a mere sign, a pressure of the lips—yet it thrills body and soul beyond all words.” ”

“ Margaret impulsively put her hand on Phil’s arm:
“Why, how Southern he looks! How tall and dark and typical his whole figure!”
“Yes, and his traits of character even more typical,” said Phil. “On the surface, easy friendly ways and the tenderness of a woman—beneath, an iron will and lion heart. I like him. And what always amazes me is his universality. A Southerner finds in him the South, the Western man the West, even Charles Sumner, from Boston, almost loves him. You know I think he is the first great all-round American who ever lived in the White House.” ”

“ Stoneman lifted his head in amazement at the burst of passionate intensity with which the Southerner poured out his protest.
“For a Russian to rule a Pole,” he went on, “a Turk to rule a Greek, or an Austrian to dominate an Italian is hard enough, but for a thick-lipped, flat-nosed, spindle-shanked negro, exuding his nauseating animal odour, to shout in derision over the hearths and homes of white men and women is an atrocity too monstrous for belief. Our people are yet dazed by its horror. My God! when they realize its meaning, whose arm will be strong enough to hold them?” ”

“ Cameron watched the movements of the black judge, already notorious for the sale of his opinions, with a sense of sickening horror. This man was but yesterday a slave, his father a medicine man in an African jungle who decided the guilt or innocence of the accused by the test of administering poison. If the poison killed the man, he was guilty; if he survived, he was innocent. For four thousand years his land had stood a solid bulwark of unbroken barbarism. Out of its darkness he had been thrust upon the seat of judgment of the laws of the proudest and highest type of man evolved in time. ”

“ Since the dawn of history the negro has owned the continent of Africa—rich beyond the dream of poet’s fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. ”

“ As Elsie drank the beauty of the scene, the music of the falls ringing its soft accompaniment, her heart went out in a throb of love and pity for the land and its people.
“Can you blame us for loving such a spot?” said Marion. “It’s far more beautiful from the cliff at Lover’s Leap. I’ll take you there some day. My father used to tell me that this world was Heaven, and that the spirits would all come back to live here when sin and shame and strife were gone.” ”

“ As we wrestle with the powers of darkness now strangling our life, give to our souls to endure as seeing the invisible, and to our right arms the strength of the martyred dead of our people. Have mercy on the poor, the weak, the innocent and defenceless, and deliver us from the body of the Black Death. In a land of light and beauty and love our women are prisoners of danger and fear. ”

“ He forgot the Capitol and the surging crowds before the sweeter creative wonder silently growing in his soul.
“And yet,” she faltered, “when I think of what all this means for our people at home—their sorrow and poverty and ruin—you know it makes me faint.”
Phil’s hand timidly sought the soft one resting on his arm and touched it reverently.
“Believe me, Miss Margaret, it will be all for the best in the end. The South will yet rise to a nobler life than she has ever lived in the past. This is her victory as well as ours.” ”

“ Behind the tragedy of Reconstruction stood the remarkable man whose iron will alone had driven these terrible measures through the chaos of passion, corruption, and bewilderment which followed the first assassination of an American President. As he leaned on his window in this village of the South and watched in speechless rage the struggle at that negro armoury, he felt for the first time the foundations sinking beneath his feet. ”

“ The glorious sunshine, the shimmering green of the grass, the warm breezes, and the shouts of victory mocked the mother’s anguish.
At the White House gates they passed the blue sentry pacing silently back and forth, who merely glanced at them with keen eyes and said nothing. In the steady beat of his feet the mother could hear the tramp of soldiers leading her boy to the place of death! 23
A great lump rose in her throat as she caught the first view of the Executive Mansion gleaming white and silent and ghostlike among the budding trees. ”

“ We might go among strangers,” pleaded the mother.
“We could not escape ourselves! The thought of life is torture. Only those who hate me could wish that I live. The grave will be soft and cool, the light of day a burning shame.”
“Come back to the seat a moment—let me tell you my love again,” urged the mother. “Life still is dear while I hold your hand.”
As they sat in brooding anguish, floating up from the river valley came the music of a banjo in a negro cabin, mingled with vulgar shout and song and dance. ”

“ When the Clerk of the Senate called his name, still the battle raged. He sat in silence, the whiteness of death about his lips, while the clerk at a signal from the Chair paused.
And then a scene the like of which was never known in American history! August Senators crowded around his desk, begging, shouting, imploring, and demanding that a fellow Senator break his solemn word of honour!
For a moment pandemonium reigned.
“Vote! Vote! Call his name again!” they shouted.
High above all rang the voice of Charles Sumner, leading the wild chorus, crying:
“Vote! Vote! Vote!” ”

“ A white man has no right a negro need respect. The children of the breed of men who speak the tongue of Burns and 290 Shakespeare, Drake and Raleigh, have been disarmed and made subject to the black spawn of an African jungle! Can human flesh endure it? When Goth and Vandal barbarians overran Rome, the negro was the slave of the Roman Empire. The savages of the North blew out the light of Ancient Civilization, but in all the dark ages which followed they never dreamed the leprous infamy of raising a black slave to rule over his former master! ”

“ The giant figure in the White House alone had dared to brook his anger and block the way; for old Stoneman was the Congress of the United States. The opposition was too weak even for his contempt. Cool, deliberate, and venomous alike in victory or defeat, the fascination of his positive faith and revolutionary programme had drawn the rank and file of his party in Congress to him as charmed satellites. ”

“ The demoralization incident to a great war, the waste of unheard-of sums of money, the giving of contracts involving millions by which fortunes were made in a night, the riot of speculation and debauchery by those who tried to get rich suddenly without labour, had created a new Capital of the Nation. The vulture army of the base, venal, unpatriotic, and corrupt, which had swept down, a black cloud, in wartime to take advantage of the misfortunes of the Nation, had settled in Washington and gave new tone to its life. ”

“ No sculptor ever dreamed a more sinister emblem of the corruption of a race of empire builders than this group. Its black figures, wrapped in the night of four thousand years of barbarism, squatted there the “equal” of their master, grinning at his forms of justice, the evolution of forty centuries of Aryan genius. To their brute strength the white fanatic in the madness of his hate had appealed, and for their hire he had bartered the birthright of a mighty race of freemen. ”

“ A single fierce leap and the black claws clutched the air slowly as if sinking into the soft white throat.
Strong men began to cry like children.
“Stop him! Stop him!” screamed a clansman, springing on the negro and grinding his heel into his big thick 324 neck. A dozen more were on him in a moment, kicking, stamping, cursing, and crying like madmen.
Doctor Cameron leaped forward and beat them off:
“Men! Men! You must not kill him in this condition!” ”

“ And then, with a smile on his lips and a dare to death in his big brown eyes, he rammed that flag into the cannon’s mouth, reeled, and fell! A cheer broke from our men.
“Your brother sprang forward and caught him in his arms, and as we bent over the unconscious form, he exclaimed: ‘My God, doctor, look at him! He is so much like me I feel as if I had been shot myself!’ They were as much alike as twins—only his hair was darker. I tell you, Miss Elsie, it’s a sin to kill men like that. One such man is worth more to this nation than every negro that ever set his flat foot on this continent!” ”

“ Cameron, you know I must execute orders.”
“These are not the orders of a soldier!” shouted the prisoner, enraged beyond all control. “They are orders for a jailer, a hangman, a scullion—no soldier who wears the sword of a civilized nation can take such orders. The war is over; the South is conquered; I have no country save America. For the honour of the flag, for which I once poured out my blood on the heights of Buena Vista, I protest against this shame!” ”

“ The eighty thousand rifles with which the negroes had been armed were now in the hands of their foes. A white rifle-club was organized in every town, village, and hamlet. They attended the public meetings with their guns, drilled in front of the speakers’ stands, yelled, hooted, hissed, cursed, and jeered at the orators who dared to champion or apologize for negro rule. At night the hoofbeat of squadrons of pale horsemen and the 352 crack of their revolvers struck terror to the heart of every negro, carpet-bagger, and scallawag. ”