Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/278

 cloud. Behind a theory, that might makes right, and justice—is what we choose to make it!

"Come out, Oh, America! Come out, Oh Land of the South! In any great human cause some blood must be shed to impress the people with the seriousness and the righteousness of the cause. Therefore the death of this honorable, noble man, if it serve the proper purpose will awaken us to a greater consciousness of the evil we have reared in our midst; to quicken our consciences to the dangers that surround us; this death has come to show us the will of God, to point the way to better living for us all.

"We owe these people a duty we have never thought of paying. We owe ourselves a protection from the menace of anarchy and ruin. Far better it would have been if, after the war of secession we had turned our efforts to making them into good citizens rather than to have tried so hard to enslave them again. We have never done right by them and it is not to their discredit that they have come so far and done so well under the circumstances. Rather has it been to the great discredit of the South that we have sought to keep a people virtual slaves when the God of the Universe had ordained it otherwise. We have not played the game fairly. It is time that we should.

"How much better it would be if we had set ourselves to the task of educating this people into the ways of civilization; if we had started and kept going, schools for their education, settlement houses for turning them into better citizens, and teaching them the laws of health and clean