The Hindered Hand Part 30

Earl invaded state after state in the South and conferred with the radical leaders wherever he went and found the sentiment everywhere prevailing that the time was ripe for the radical South to pull off its mask and let the world see its real heart.

With an anxious heart Earl watched the forming of the lines of the campaign. Men in all parts of the country, whose only hope of success lay in obtaining the political power in the hands of the radicals, besought them to forego making the Negro question an issue, but they were deaf to all appeals.

The convention dominated by the radicals met, and John Blue, alias Earl Bluefield, was there. When the Anti-Negro plank was read, from his seat in the gallery a mighty cheer rang out that started a wave of enthusiasm unsurpa.s.sed in the history of political conventions.

As John Blue stood waving a flag and cheering, his eye swept over that great throng, and he said to himself:

"O bonnie Southland: if you had developed real statesmen among you, men who knew their age, they would be here to tell all these people save myself to be quiet, on the ground that it is indelicate for a corpse to cheer at its own funeral. But your really great men are at home sorrowing over your coming humiliation. This day's work is the beginning of the end. Eunice, the sky brightens!

"Heaven of heavens, I thank thee that thou hast so arranged it that the American people must now say as to whether or not the caste spirit shall be allowed to lay his b.l.o.o.d.y tentacles on the political life of the whole nation."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

_Postponing His Shout of Triumph._

With ceaseless, tireless energy Earl Bluefield went everywhere in the North during the campaign that followed, a.s.sailing the political power in control of the South. The heat of his heart warmed his words and his eloquence thrilled the nation.

"How has it happened that an orator of such power has remained so long hidden from the nation's gaze?" was the question everywhere asked.

In an address to Northern labor, which was heralded far and wide, Earl said:

"To those of you who in the sweat of your brow earn your bread, I bring the message that your earning of a livelihood, a very grave matter with you, is affected by the Southern situation.

"It has been said that the South is freer from labor strikes than any other equal area of territory within the borders of civilization. The weakness of the Negro in the body politic, his lack of means to insure his protection, gives timidity to Negro labor and causes it to be little inclined to organize.

"The enforced cheapness of Negro labor brings down the price of all labor, just as a house sinks with its foundation. Lo, the word has already gone forth that the South is the place for capital, that labor is cheap, that there is an absence of social unrest found elsewhere.

"Read your commercial journals and note how many of the inst.i.tutions upon which you have depended for a livelihood have been transferred to this land of cheapness and peace, ominous peace. Note how your captains of industry are a.s.severating that factories in the North must cut wages in order to compete with those that have gone South.

"Your economists saw in the days preceding civil strife that the workingman of the North could ill afford to compete with slave labor at the South. 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.

"Men of the North, mark well my words: You must lend your aid to an adjustment of relations in the South upon an equitable basis or be confronted with the question of the disorganization and readjustment of your own affairs. Stand out against the repressionists of the South, make the whole nation a field of fair play and then we will not have this one disturbing center distributing trouble to all other parts of the nation."

Addressing the business interests of the country, he said:

"Work is the one American word, and as a result great is the monument erected to our industry. Our acc.u.mulations are enormous.

"From time to time questions affecting the whole wealth of the nation must be pa.s.sed upon by the people. These repressionists have shown that there is no interest so vital but that they will smite it hip and thigh if by so doing they may advance the policy of repression. You are confronted therefore with a power that bids you to become repressionists or stand subject to onslaughts whenever the fancy obtains that a lick at your interests will do their cause good.

"You cannot commit yourselves to the cause of repression. It taints character. You are great employers of labor. In the mighty problems that are to confront you your spirit will be your most valuable a.s.set. You must keep it pure at all hazards.

Nor can your business interests long endure these constant jars from the repressionists. You cannot afford to accept either horn of the dilemma offered you by the repressionists. Your only remedy lies in smiting repression."

To the statesmen whose anxious eyes were upon the future of the nation, he said:

"In the days that are now upon us and in the years that are to come there can be no escape, perhaps, from some ills of which the fathers never dreamed, unless a larger grant of power be given unto our national government. However pressing the situation, rely upon it, the repressionists will seek to keep the nation in swaddling clothes for fear that added power might some day turn its attention to the question of repression."

In an address to the whole people, he said:

"A power that would wrong a race, that would in any way restrict human growth, that would not have the nation a fair and open field, is out of tune with heaven, is working at cross purposes with the whole universe, and will carry into an abyss all whom it can mislead."

The Negroes are a people capable of great enthusiasm and ardent attachments. All their fervor was thrown into the campaign. Any vast body of people with deep convictions have the power to greatly impress others. The settled conviction of the Negroes that their very destiny in America hinged, it seemed, upon the outcome of this election, was not without its psychological effect upon the public mind.

The cause championed by Earl marched to a glorious triumph at the polls, but he took no part in the jollification that followed.

"My work is only half done," was the reflection that kept him calm in the presence of the victory for which he had made the full offering of his soul.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

_He Cannot, But He Does!_

Ensal Ellwood entered his room in his home in Monrovia, Liberia, West Coast Africa, a thoroughly dejected man. He had just returned from an extended trip in which he took a survey of his work and contemplated the outlook. His investigations had served to increase his hopes as to the possibilities of the African race, but he was nevertheless depressed.

Nor was this the first time during his stay in Africa that this gloomy atmosphere seemed to envelop him. In fact, he was the subject of frequent attacks of melancholia which the many friends that he had made had found inexplicable.

This depression was not due to the African fever, because science had been able to prepare his system to resist that debilitating agency.

It was not due to a want of encouragement in his plans. He had met this on every hand. A number of Southern men in sympathy with the higher aspirations of the Negro race, hopeless of seeing those aspirations realized in the Southland, had placed at his disposal a large sum of money with which to draw off the Negro population from unfriendly points in the South and establish them in Africa.

Far sighted capitalists of America seeing in an awakened Africa a possible market for American goods, thought it wise to keep in touch with this young man who was to be so largely the great awakening agency.

England, France and Germany vied with each other in offering inducements for him to devote his energies to their respective holdings. The Republic of Liberia was wild with joy over his interest in her welfare.

The King of Abyssinia had made urgent requests for him to come to his borders.

Thousands of cultured young men and women had caught Ensal's zeal for the world-wide awakening of the race and were only awaiting his signal to flock to his standard.

And yet his heart was heavy. Ensal took his seat at his desk and rested his throbbing brow thereon. He mused to himself, saying:

"Here I am with the mightiest work of the ages on my hands, and the door of opportunity before me, and yet, terrible, terrible thought, I see failure written upon my skies. For my spirit lags; there is no quickening battery at my life's center. Ah! it is awful to be dead alive. That which would quicken my spirit and give me the needed zest to face the work of an Atlas, the bearing of a world upon my shoulders--that influence is far removed from me, farther than those stretches of thousands of miles tell of."

During Ensal's absence of many months his mail had acc.u.mulated until now he found himself face to face with a huge pile of unopened letters and newspapers. Lifting his head from his desk, he wearily turned to his mail.

In the pile of letters he came across one from Earl Bluefield which ran as follows:

MY DEAR ENSAL:

There is great need of you in America at this hour, and a golden opportunity for winning an enduring place in the history of the world awaits you.