Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/219



cLEOD was waiting with some impatience in his room at the hotel.

"Walk in Gaston, you're a little late. However, better late than never." McLeod plunged directly into the purpose of his visit.

"Gaston you're a man of brains, and oratorical genius. I heard your speech in the last Democratic convention in Raleigh, and I don't say it to flatter you, that was the greatest speech made in any assembly in this state since the war."

"Thanks!" said Gaston with a wave of his arm.

"I mean it. You know too much to be in sympathy with the old moss-backs who are now running this state. For fourteen years, the South has marched to the polls and struck blindly at the Republican party, and three times it struck to kill. The Southern people have nothing in common with these Northern Democrats who make your platforms and nominate your candidate. You don't ask anything about the platform or the man. You would vote for the devil if the Democrats nominated him, and ask no questions; and what infuriates me is you vote to enforce platforms that mean economic ruin to the South."

"Man shall not live by bread alone, McLeod."

"Sure, but he can't live on dead men's bones. You vote in solid mass on the Negro question, which you settled by the power of Anglo-Saxon insolence when you destroyed the Reconstruction governments at a blow.