Sutton E. Griggs

“ Just now the American people seem much engrossed with the training of the hand of the Negro, confessedly a work of tremendous moment. But be it known unto you, oh Americans, that it is through his mind, his spirit, the exhalations of his soul, his dreams or lack of dreams, that the Negro is to leave his most marked influence on American life. Let the use to which Mr. Dixon is putting his borrowed emotional power recall the nation to the slumbering Negro mind that must ere long awake to power. ”

“ You will be a great but a soulless race. This will come upon you when your heart is cankered with caste. You will devour the Negro to-day, the humbler white to-morrow, and you who remain will then turn upon yourselves."
Tiara paused and glanced around the court room as if to see how much sympathy she could read in the countenances of her hearers. The rapt attention, the kindly look in their eyes gave her courage to take up a question which the situation in the South made exceedingly delicate, when one's audience was composed of Southern white people. ”

“ A Negro wife, true to that impulse of the woman's heart that has made this old world worth living in, that has taught men that the fireside is worth dying for, that impulse—devotion to a loved one in distress, led that girl to journey by her husband's side through bog and swamp, bearing up bravely under the scorching heat of the sun and wilting not in the dead of night amid the gloom of the beast infested forest. ”

“ I go to introduce a working force into the life of the Africans that will make for their uplift. May it continue your ambition to abide Negroes, to force the American civilization to accord you your place in your own right, to the end that the world may have an example of alien races living side by side administering the general government together and meting out justice and fair play to all. If through the process of being made white you attain your rights, the battle of the dark man will remain to be fought. ”

“ There Tiara sat, tears evidently long pent-up freely flowing and her body shaking with, emotion.
To find a word expressive of Ensal's bewildered state of mind is a problem to be handed over to the type of man engaged in the search for perpetual motion and does not come within the purview of a simple author. Man who tames the lion, harnesses the winds, makes a whimperer of steam and cowers the lightning—this same vainglorious, triumphant man is simply helpless in the presence of a woman's tears! ”

“ Daleman, "I have thought to have a talk with you concerning the dark shadow that projects itself over our section, the Negro problem. Not that I would infect you with my peculiar views, but that those of us and our descendants who abide here may have your sympathy."
"My love for Alene invests all that is near to her with my abiding sympathy," said Ramon with quiet fervor.
"Yes, but the mind must be informed if sympathy is to be intelligently directed. To begin with, men of my class, families like mine have no prejudice against Negroes nor they against us. ”

“ It is our privilege, and our duty as well, to contribute our best heart and brain to the care of the interests of our nation and to the guidance of the world. But if our statesmen walk through the halls of Congress emitting from their garments the scent of burning human flesh, when they would put forth their souls as great magnets for mankind, the tender, sensitive world-heart will recede from their touch, and leave their hollow, resounding voices reverberating through space. ”

“ Permit me to say to you that the half-slave, the political slave, made timid by an environment that tends to crush his spirit and dwarf his energies, is a menace to you, holding the white labor of the South down and affecting you of the North.
"Again, adverse conditions at the South will drive the Negro to your very door. Some day when you desire to remain away from work to allow your employers leisure to ponder a condition which you desire improved, you will find the Negro there to take your place. ”

“ The ballot put into the hands of the gloom enshrouded Negro sent a thrill of hope into his very bone and marrow, and the sense of responsibility and the beckoning of the high destiny of citizenship in a great republic begot such a fever of progress in the race that the problem is now that of dealing with the aspirations of the race rather than the more awful problem of trying to avoid the contaminating odor of a race dead to higher appeals, sinking and pulling the nation with it. ”

“ On an eminence crowning the center of the area whereon the city is planted, the State has builded its capitol, and from the tower thereof one can see the engaging network of streets, contemplate the splendid architecture of the buildings, and gaze upon the noble trees that boldly line the sidewalks, and thus testify that they are not afraid of civilization.
Even in the matter of climate Almaville is highly favored, it would seem. Her summers are not too hot nor her winters too cold, and many a fevered brow finds solace in her balmy breezes. ”

“ Young Maul sat meditating a while and then said:
"Do you know that in a fair test of strength the better element of whites even now would triumph at the polls. But the spirit of fraud built up to dethrone the 'carpet bag' government yet lingers to haunt those who would now dispense with it, which shows how dangerous it is to do evil even that good may come.
"We of the South hear much of bribery and corruption in the North, and I stand ready to co-operate with the decent element to purify the suffrage of the entire nation." ”

“ The Negroes, whose absence from the mob you would ascribe to sympathy with the criminal, were in their homes sorrowing over the death of the little one, sorrowing over the disgrace that was so undeservingly brought upon the race, and wondering whether your mob had the right man or was making a mistake that would leave the really guilty free to again bring death and grief and wrath to the white race and grief and shame unspeakable to the Negro race. ”

“ When, therefore, the Negroes were approached by two sets of men, the one set, composed of the former ruling class of the South, equipped morally and intellectually for good government, but wrong at heart upon the great question of human rights, the other composed largely of carpet baggers, scalawags and bad administrators, but true to the principle of equality before the law, it ought not to be surprising that a race fresh from the galling yoke of slavery should choose the set that would look after their liberties. ”

“ We lynch niggers down here for anything. We lynch them for being sassy and sometimes lynch them on general principles. The truth of the matter is the real 'one crime' that paves the way for a lynching whenever we have the notion, is the crime of being black."
"Burn them! The one crime!" murmured Ramon, scarcely knowing what he said. With bowed head and hands clasped behind him he walked away to meditate.
"After all, do not I see to-day a gleam of light thrown on the taking away of my Alene? With murder and lawnessness rampant in the Southland, this section's woes are to be many. ”

“ The coming of this radical of radicals before the bar of public opinion, clothed in his garb of avowed prejudice of the rankest sort, means that the self-satisfied isolation of the past is over, that even the radicals desire or see the need of sympathetic consideration from other portions of the human family—decidedly a step forward for them. The coming to the light of this type where civilization may work upon it is in this respect one of the most hopeful signs of America's future. ”

“ Watch with thine all seeing eye and nail with thine omnipotent hand the machinations of those who would poison human hearts and destroy the humane instincts that are the graces of our faulty world. Abide thou here forever and grant that the post of pilot of our planet be given unto this land unto which, though I depart, my heart is moored by the sweat of brow, flowing blood and anguish of spirit contributed by my ancestors. ”

“ Tiara paused an instant and then resumed:
"One word to you all. I am aware of the fact that the construction of a social fabric, such as your Anglo-Saxondom, has been one of the marvelous works of nature, and I realize that the maintenance of its efficiency for the stupendous world duties that lie before it demand that you have strict regard to the physical, mental and moral characteristics that go to constitute your aggregation. But I warn you to beware of the dehumanizing influence of caste. It will cause your great race to be warped, to be narrow. ”

“ Ensal Ellwood and Earl Bluefield boarded a street car, while the Negro girl who had occupied the coach with them, not knowing anything about the city, went in the direction of the clamoring hackmen, hoping that some one of them might tell her where she could find proper entertainment for the night. As she drew near, the line of hackmen bent forward, with hands outstretched for traveling bags, each man eyeing her intently as if hoping that the character of the look bestowed upon her might influence her choice. ”

“ One of the brightest pages in the history of this nation will be that which tells the story of those men and women of the North, who, over the protests of loved ones, faced the ostracism of their kind in the South that they might open the Negroes' eyes to the hitherto forbidden glories of modern civilization and take care that the spiritual was not lost sight of in the new maze of world wonders. Withered indeed must be the soul that could scoff at such moral heroism, and yet that is just what Mr. Dixon does. ”

“ Our Bud! Laughing, innocent, whole-souled Foresta!" almost shouted Ensal, the horror, through the personal element brought into the matter, now doubling its force.
"Poor Mrs. Crump! Poor Negro womanhood! Crucified at the stake, while we men play the part of women, for, what can we do?" said Ensal, looking at Earl, tears of pity for his people welling up in his eyes and stealing their way down his noble face. ”

“ The Negro porter was in the court room eagerly watching the progress of the trial, knowing that the obtaining of his reward hinged upon the outcome of the case. He saw the trend of affairs and felt that something had to be done to stem the tide. He saw Tiara sitting in the court room, and said to the prosecuting attorney in a whisper, "Yonder is a colored girl who knows her thoroughly and can tell all about her." ”

“ The radicals who have oppressed the Negroes of the South and sent them North, sent them forth with heart burnings, and through the pivotal states of the North they are ever on guard to turn the tide of battle against your section. Radicalism, then, is building up a political power in the North that will be a potent factor in continuing the isolation and impotence of your section, and will render the wish of a Negro ward politician of the North of more consequence than the combined pleadings of all your congressional delegation from the South. ”

“ One of the hardest tasks among us is the suppression of lynching. In the very nature of things, as conditions now exist, there cannot be such a thing as a trial of a charge of outrage by a Negro man upon a white woman. Often in cases of that nature the crime charged is disproved, by proving another offense involving collusion. Well, no lawyer can be found who would set up such a defense for a Negro client if the white woman in the case objected, for he would be killed, perhaps, and, furthermore, collusion is punished in the same way as outrage. ”