this golf bug! She's no magThen he saw his mother, sat up, too, his hands fumbing cets. o's answer. She was standing iant cinema flashed by again e on the eighteenth greeng her putter for the last shot t at her father-then at Ted. ok of such intimate undernoying her at the time. Jo : unmistakable words now it if I don't win! Your so much more than I do. game of golf where we are She found it presently in their room. Chris's brown leather suit-case, dogeared, rounded out of shape-like Chris's back thrown open on the couch, halffilled with neat rows of rolled-up underwear, socks, toilet articles- She could see his deft fingers arranging them. She remembered he was leaving on the late afternoon train for Summerville. Instinctively she ran to the closet, pulled down her bag-opened it beside the other-began pulling garments out of bureau drawers. The two bags, close together, were pals, fellow-travellers on many good times. The familiarity of their personal belongings re-established old intimacies. And she was wondering about their journey's end-who would meet them at the depot. . . which of the old crowd would be back. . . . She took out her new crêpe-for the banquet. Chris li her in yellow. . . "Hello, there! Didn't you hear us c ing you to lunch, Jo? Why, motherChris was crossing the room, his f twisted into incredulity. She straightened up put out her em] hand-closed it convulsively over "Fold this for me, Chris. I never can things into a suit-case the way you ca "Here, give it to me, Jo!" His hands shook a little, as he spr out the slippery garment on the b But the incredulity melted into twisted smile. At the sound of Ted covering the sta he looked around at her. This time, wanted to share his little joke. "Histo repeats itself, don't it, mother? He's just like me-right between the ey It'll be fun-to go back- Won't it? AY I not, once again, borrow the text of my sermon from Dom Anatole? It is written in The Amethyst Ring: "M. Gustave Lacarelle had a thick, long, and fair mustache, which, as it determined his physiognomy, determined also his character." He looked like an ancient Gaul; from his student days, he had been nicknamed the Gaul; and he felt in honor bound to uphold the Gallic tradition, which, as we all know, consists in making love to every woman. Poor Lacarelle found it irksome at times to maintain the standard of his race, especially when Madame Bergeret fell-plump into his arms. But "noblesse oblige," and he pursued resignedly the course of his Gallic destiny. Among our manifold delusions, there are few that are so pathetic, and none perhaps that is so dangerous, as this desire to live up to some preconceived type. Excellent Germans, adipose, beer-sodden, home-loving, possibly musical and metaphysical, whom Providence had intended for Pantoffelhelden, felt it their duty to rouse in their hearts the Berserker rage, the tearing fury of Blond Beasts, because such amiable traits had, in remote ages, characterized their hypothetical ancestors. Englishmen, and, above all, English governments, have been known to spurn as un-English the plain, immediate solution of an urgent problem, because it was truer to form to "muddle through somehow." I remember a lady of unusual scientific attainments who, because she was born in Baltimore, found it necessary to cultivate a number of odd little superstitions, with the proud apology: "I am Southern, you know." It is particularly useless to discuss the make a virtue of their prejud pregnably entrench themselv You might have Logic, Scienc racy, and Christianity on you that your opponents have to "We are Southern, and we hav feeling in the marrow of our bo is the one central fact, which y understand, but which you wi accept. All your specious argur be shattered against it." Thu little Christian from the South, ing herself at some missionary ba the side of a negro, rushed away table, convulsed with indignation my dear," said a lady who had her, "do you think that Jesus wo it in such a way?"-"Ah, wel came from Heaven: but I con Alabama, and I won't stand it." We have never been very mu pressed with the argument that su ings were "in the blood." We ha told that it was "in the blood" of men and Germans to hate one a just as cats hate dogs, horses hate women hate mice, and Orangeme Sinn Feiners. But we realized th noblest Germans, like Goethe and sche, had loved France, no more, ever, than the noblest Frenchmen, Michelet, Renan, had loved Ger Even if we admitted that there "something in the blood," this wou alter in the slightest degree the que of right and wrong. I am enough Fundamentalist to believe in the pravity of human nature, and in th cessity of some grace divine to cur evil instincts. It is "in the blood man to kill, ravish, and get drunk. I been done from earliest times, by races, in all countries, under all religi If we were told "Thou shalt not kill,' because the Legislator knew that hur mories PROBLEM RD Im of King Log," etc. rtue of their prejudice and inentrench themselves therein. have Logic, Science, DemxChristianity on your side: a opponents have to answer is: outhern, and we have the race he marrow of our bones. This central fact, which you cannot but which you will have your specious arguments wil i against it." Thus a good an from the South, who, findt some missionary banquet by rushed away from the negro, sed with indignation. "Br id a lady who had followed think that Jesus would take way?"-"Ah, well! Jesus Heaven: but I come from ! I won't stand it." ever been very much im he argument that such feel the blood." We had been s"in the blood" of Frenchnans to hate one another. e dogs, horses hate camels ice, and Orangemen hate But we realized that the s, like Goethe and NietzhowFrance, no more, oblest Frenchmen, Hugo, 1, had loved Germany. nitted that there were e blood," this would not test degree the question ng. I am enough of a to believe in the denature, and in the neace divine to curb its is "in the blood" of and get drunk. It has arliest times, by all under all religions. "it is ligious as well as civil, are engaged in a perpetual fight against human nature. And it is not a losing fight, because human nature is divided against itself, and because the angel in us is no less real than the beast. That is why I formally refused to be bluffed by the Southern taboo. Taboos are exceedingly valuable as incentives to thought. As in the days of Eden, they point to the Tree of Knowledge. It was my privilege to be connected for eleven years with a Southern institution. Now that I have left the Land of Cotton, I feel free to say that nowhere else, in Europe or in America, have I ever met such a genuine aristocracy of simplicity, kindness, wit, and culture. There, more completely than in the North or in the West, I was able to forget at times the vulgarity which besets our commercial civilization. Babbitt is ubiquitous in the New South: but he has not yet become supreme, and the merchant who is first of all a gentleman remains the ideal. Of all the nostalgic memories I have gathered in a roaming life, there is none perhaps that is so poignantly vivid as this: the farewell picnic of a small knot of friends, Townmen and Gownmen, cheerfully oblivious of wealth or learning; the sluggish bayou at our feet; the grove of live oaks draped with Spanish moss (that vampire among plants, which kills with beauty); and the well-known gentle voices rising in jest and song through the caressing softness of the Southern night. ... . . Ah, well! The South did not treat me as a stranger, and I may be trusted to speak of it in the spirit of a grateful friend. If I had come down South with the preconceived idea that all Southern whites were busy grinding the dark faces of the poor, a few weeks' experience would have sufficed to explode the delusion. Before the Great War, there was no more contented working class anywhere than the Southern negroes; and if they are now more restless than they used to be, their discontent is mild compared with the ominous ferment found in other parts. Nowhere will you find better relations between masters and servants. The ma terial conditions are such as mould make there exists in the Southern home atmosphere of personal friendliness has survived the Civil War and years of emancipation. It is not all id I know: servants and masters are hu all too human. But no Southern 1 could stand the cold contempt, the of humanity, the positive cruelty, would seem in comparison, that pr in London or Paris. Gradually, as facts were impr upon me, I came to the staggering clusion that there was no race questi the South at all. I did not acce] easily: it sounded too good to be tru happened to hear, in my Southern H town, that picturesque character, Pa Russell. He told us that we had alr entered upon the millennium: in fac had begun, I believe, in the year As I was listening to his ingenious Ap lyptic calculations, I could not help th ing: "What is the use of a millenni then, if it looks just like Hell?" I evil could be exorcised by a mere de But I don't belong to the thriving which suppresses the Devil by cut him dead. Ugly realities will not d even though, like Soviet Russia, they not officially recognized. Yet, in that very sense, all true So erners would agree with my para There is no real race question; it i importation from the North. Don't our niggers with false ideas; leave alone, there will be races in the South, no difficulty between them. It is same spirit which prompted Germ before 1914, to deny that there was Alsace-Lorraine problem. Recently, 1 land served notice upon the Leagu Nations that the Egyptian unpleas ness did not exist, and sent a few ships to Alexandria to make that existence more palpable. This spirit been admirably summed up by I Macaulay: "Don't interfere: we war have our little war in peace. There is another point upon whi can claim the support of the entire So there is no antipathy between the ra but exactly the reverse. The Sout Mammy is no myth; I have seen her my own eyes. And even the you 1 .... their masters, a pride in whatever distinction comes to "the family," a sense of belonging which is not slavish, but feudal, and in line with our finest Nordic tradition. These sentiments are reciprocated, as the real Southerner is of a kindly and affectionate disposition. There is on the part of the ruling class a feeling of responsibility which, at its best, is truly ennobling. Yes, the darkies and the white folks are genuinely fond of one another. Talk of "sending the blacks back to Africa"! That sounds in Dixie like Yankee nonsense. Not only do the Southerners need the negroes in their cotton fields and in their mills, but they want them in their own homes, washing, cleaning, cooking for them, holding their babies, inextricably mixed with their most intimate life. A Southern lady is never so happy as when her house is swarming with negro help, and pickaninnies playing on the back stoop. There is something delightfully picturesque and human about a big colored "lady" boiling clothes in the open air, over a primitive charcoal bucket, singing some plaintive and humorous tune in a voice as rich as a Thanksgiving dinner. To be sure, an electric washing-machine would be more efficient; but it would not have the same appeal. All this is sentimental, but are we not discussing sentiments? I do not see why "sentimental" should invariably be a term of reproach. Shelley is not condemned because some one did write "The Rosary." It is evident that Southern children are born perfectly innocent of race prejudice. They sit on their nurses' knees without any sense of repugnance; they play with negro children on a footing of perfect equality. I have clearly in my mind the picture of an unusually fair little girl, the daughter of one of the richest cotten men in the country, sitting on a toy wagon with a negro boy, whom she was holding as tight as she could. A very few months later, probably, she did begin to realize that the creature she had been treating like a brother was under an inexorable curse. I have watched the growth of the race feeling in my own children. It was not native to them, it came insidiously, by imperceptible steps like their South What is the root of the trou it is not racial antipathy? I there are historical reasons, still potent in a tradition-lovin The economic wounds have be the bitterness of actual warfar forgotten, and the veterans of b are able to meet in friendlies But the conflict has undoubte the Southern soul. A nation Wilson's gospel of self-determin any sense, no country ever des name of nation more truly than federacy-a nation will confess was wrong or defeated-but no I have heard Britishers admit Opium War was a crime: but t not suggesting that Hong Kong s returned to China. Some Gerr willing to acknowledge they were others will own the Imperial Gov was guilty: few will accept an verdict on both points. So the beaten to her knees, clings all t tenaciously to the idea that she w and right, not on the issue of se which is now dead, but on the white supremacy. To admit t Yankee abolitionists were justified be rank treason to the heroic s the South: their ancestors would their graves. Thus the South ha hardened by defeat into an attit irreconcilable opposition to the evangel. A change of heart can imposed by the sword. Then there was the nightmare reconstruction period, when the v ous North applied in the most insan mechanical fashion the pseudocratic dogma: every featherless bi entitled to a vote. Southern State cities are still paying for the corru and extravagance of the carpet-bag It was studied insult combined with s matic injury. This is what the pol equality of the races stands for in So ern minds. And we cannot help sy thizing with their horror. Even at ent, after the tremendous progres the colored people, their sudden wholesale accession to suffrage would an evil worse than their complete ex sion. Finally there is the enormous no the root of the trouble, then, i meet in friendliest fashion. nflict has undoubtedly seared n soul. A nation-and if spel of self-determination has no country ever deserved the ion more truly than the Connation will confess that she or defeated-but never both d Britishers admit that the was a crime: but they were ng that Hong Kong should be China. Some Germans are knowledge they were beaten; vn the Imperial Government few will accept an adverse oth points. So the South, : knees, clings all the more the idea that she was right; t on the issue of secession, dead, but on the issue of To admit that the acy. ionists were justified would on to the heroic spirit of ir ancestors would turn in Thus the South has been lefeat into an attitude of opposition to the Boston ange of heart cannot be sword. vas the nightmare of the period, when the victori ed in the most insane and hion the pseudo-demovery featherless biped is e. Southern States and ying for the corruption e of the carpet-baggers. ult combined with syste his is what the political ces stands for in Southwe cannot help sympahorror. Even at pres emendous progress le, their sudden and 1 to suffrage would be their complete exclu of SOUTHERN MEMORIES control clings desperately to its privilege, and is not overscrupulous in its methods of self-defense. I know there is a new "Lily-White Republicanism" in the South and I know also that if the negroes had the vote, most of them would cast it for the Democratic ticket, "like gentlemen." But the comfortable, unchallenged supremacy of the machine would be at an end. With the South no longer solid, Democracy would have to mean something positive, and that might compel Republicanism to mean something also. No party has ever been willing to extend suffrage to its enemies, or even to a new and uncertain element. It took Great Britain nearly a century to grant all adult Britishers a vote. Guizot faced a revolution, rather than give the franchise to such dangerous characters as professors, attorneys, and notaries. We know how tenaciously the Suffrage amendment was fought, and the French Radicals still deny women political equality, for the same reason as Southern Democrats exclude the negroes: the future of the Party is at stake. A party needs a bogey as a rallying cry: it may be a foreign foe, the Jews, Catholicism, Socialism. In modern France, whenever Radical governments were at their wits' end, that is to say most of the time, they raised the cry: Down with the Jesuits! Southern politicians would lose the best of their stockin-trade if they no longer had to "keep the nigger out." These historical and political reasons are not to be minimized. With every generation that passes, they will lose some of their justification: but at the same time they will gather strength as traditions, and an inherited belief is infinitely harder to overthrow than a reasoned conviction. Feudal titles ceased to have a meaning several hundred years ago: yet an earldom, a marquisate, still have enormous value, in sentiment and in cash. It may take centuries to get over the effects of the Civil War: had we allowed the erring sisters to depart in peace, it is probable that the problem would be much nearer a satisfactory solution. Some day we shall realize that there is no righteous war: we cannot do God's work with the tools of Hell. 1 tion could have been added. It is larly tempting to keep the bulk of mon labor out of politics. A negr "knows his place" will be more will accept low wages and long hours. factor, however, has almost ceas operate. The change is not due to tics, or to the power of negro union to the northward migration of c workers. The negro is getting hi nomic dues: if he were not, he move. Obviously he would be happ the South; but now there is a limit resignation. The restriction of the fi labor from Europe will keep up a s demand for the negroes in the N The movement may never agai catastrophic in its suddenness, as i during the war; but it is sufficient, o one hand, to strengthen enormousl economic position of the colored p in the South, on the other hand, to o an ugly problem in the industrial ce of the North. Yet, potent as all these causes ma they do not go to the root of the m They apply exclusively to the old S and the race difficulty is world-wid is world-wide because it is founded universal trait of human nature hatred of genuine equality. We ch equality, in the sense that we do not to have anybody above ourselves; bu more there are below, the better pl we are. It seems that we cannot respect ourselves unless we despise body else. This is the origin of caste classes, and the race problem is mer form of the class problem. This doe make it any easier. Let us interpret a few facts of Sou experience in the light of this prin Any Southerner-and, for that m most Northerners as well-would it if a negro doctor or banker took residence next to theirs. The hands the residence, the greater the i Does this show a physical repugnar the proximity of a different race? at all: for every Southern home is fla within ten yards and frequently w ten feet, with a negro home, in the of a servants' house. A colored pro or Bishop could not be tolerated i front part of a street-car. with the |