Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/93

 men laid down their lives in the righting is a fact which deserves to be remembered), now that the American negroes are free, Christian, educated, and privileged (like artists and authors) to earn their daily bread, they cannot candidly regret that their remote ancestors had not been left unmolested on the coast of Guinea. They have their grievances; but they are the most fortunate of their race. The debt the white men owed them has been paid. There is left a mutual dependence on the law, a mutual obligation of self-imposed decency of behaviour from which not even voters are exempt.

Timidity is superimposed upon certain classes of men who are either tied up with red tape, like teachers, soldiers and sailors, or unduly dependent upon other men, like legislators, and like clerics in those churches which are strong enough to control the insubordinations of the pulpit. Of all these