Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/365

 the virtue, wealth and intelligence of the community, is now in charge of this state. I will tell you why. A Republican administration in North Carolina simply means a Negro oligarchy. The state is now being debauched and degraded by this fact in the innermost depths of its character and life. My place is here in this fight."

"But, Doctor, will not your industrial training of the Negro gradually minimise any danger to your society?"

"No, it will gradually increase it. Industrial training gives power. If the Negro ever becomes a serious competitor of the white labourer in the industries of the South, the white man will kill him, just as your labour Unions do in the North now where the conditions of life are hard, and men fight with tooth and nail for bread. If you train the negroes to be scientific farmers they will become a race of aristocrats, and when five generations removed from the memory of slavery, a war of races will be inevitable, unless the Anglo-Saxon grant this trained and wealthy African equal social rights. The Anglo-Saxon can not do this without suicide. One drop of Negro blood makes a negro."

"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Doctor, that I can't persuade you to become our pastor. But I can understand since this talk something of the larger views of your duty."

The deacon sought Mrs. Durham that evening and laid siege to her resolutely.

"Ah! deacon, you're shrewd—you are going to flatter me, but I can't let you. I'm an old fogy and out of date. I'm not orthodox on the Negro from Boston's point of view."

"Nonsense!" growled the deacon. "We don't care what you or the Doctor either thinks about the Negro, or the Jap, or the Chinaman. We want a preacher im-