THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY JAY S. STOWELL 
 
 HOME MISSION TRAILS 
 
 MAKING MISSIONS REAL (With Others) 
 
 METHODIST ADVENTURES IN NEGRO EDUCATION
 
 LOST IN THOUGHT 
 Perhaps he is wondering what the future holds in store for him.
 
 J.W. Thinks Black 
 
 VOLUME NUMBER Two 
 
 IN THE 
 JOHN WESLEY, JR., SERIES 
 
 BY 
 
 JAY S. STOWELL
 
 Copyright, 1922, by 
 JAY S. STOWELL 
 
 Printed in tha United States of America
 
 TO 
 
 THE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF 
 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WHO 
 HAVE CAUGHT THE VISION AND ARE 
 WORKING TO USHER IN THE DAY 
 WHEN INDIVIDUALS OF ALL RACES 
 EVERYWHERE SHALL HAVE A FAIR 
 CHANCE AT THE GOOD THINGS OF LIFE 
 
 550137
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD 13 
 
 I. A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 15 
 
 II. GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH SOME NEW 
 
 NEIGHBORS 43 
 
 III. IN THE LAND OF COTTON 66 
 
 IV. JOHN WESLEY, JR., MEETS A SURPRISE.... 89 
 V. How FAR CAN THE NEGRO Go? 112 
 
 VI. THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 131 
 
 VII. A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 150 
 
 VIII. AN EVENT AND A VISION.. . 168
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 LOST IN THOUGHT Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE COTTON AND THE CANE 43 
 
 Two RURAL NEGRO SCHOOLS 66 
 
 THE COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF WILEY COLLEGE 89 
 
 IN THE PHARMACY AT MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE. 112 
 
 THE INTERIOR OF A NEGRO HOME 131 
 
 A GROUP OF NEGRO CHILDREN 150 
 
 THE HOPE OF THE NEW DAY. . .168
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO SOME ASPECTS 
 OF THE RACE PROBLEM IN AMERICA 
 AND TO THE WORK OF THE METH 
 ODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AMONG 
 AMERICAN NEGROES
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 THE characters of John Wesley Farwell, Jr., and 
 his friends are the creation of the Rev. Dan B. Brum- 
 mitt. They have been duly introduced by him to the 
 public in the volume entitled, John Wesley, Jr. It is 
 the privilege of the present writer to accompany some 
 of these interesting young people as they explore a 
 little further into the work of the church and to face 
 with them some of the problems which make the path 
 of Kingdom progress a difficult one and some of the 
 encouragements which are to be met along the way. 
 
 J. S. S.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 
 
 JOHN WESLEY FARWELL, JR., son of Delafield's 
 leading hardware merchant, was just back home from 
 an eventful Oriental sales and study trip. He was a 
 traveling salesman with a future, but he was also newly 
 married to Jeannette Shenk, who wanted a home. His 
 chief problem at the moment was to reconcile these 
 somewhat conflicting relationships. 
 
 He knew that his father meant him to inherit the 
 store and all thereto belonging and appertaining. Jean 
 nette naturally desired a home of her own, with J. W. 
 (short for John Wesley Farwell, Jr.), as joint owner, 
 manager, and occupier. She had no hankerings to 
 be the lonely wife of a rising young traveling salesman. 
 The Cummings Hardware Company, wholesale, of 
 Saint Louis, knowing a good man when it saw one, 
 and knowing as much as wholesale houses usually know 
 about the mentality and sentimentality of young wives 
 which knowledge might be represented by, say, a 
 mark of 17 on a scale of 100 naturally expected that 
 J. W. would stick to his job, and having one successful 
 foreign trip to his credit, would in time become one of 
 their foreign representatives. 
 
 Add to this that J. W. Farwell, Senior, was not yet 
 
 15
 
 1 6 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 ready to retire, even in favor of his hustling and sensi 
 ble son, and you have the materials of not a few en 
 tirely amicable but rather difficult discussions between 
 J. W. and his bride of a month. 
 
 The net result of their several conversations was 
 something of a compromise, to wit : No more foreign 
 trips yet awhile ; the new home to be set up in Delafield ; 
 a sales territory not quite so far afield as the wide and 
 rangy Southwest ; the Cummings people to be asked to 
 make J. W.'s trips short and more frequent, if neces 
 sary; and an extension of his vacation until after the 
 new home was settled. "The Cummings people" 
 meant Peter McDougall, general sales manager, and 
 he at last was convinced and consenting. 
 
 Then came days of ceaseless but cheerful shopping; 
 there was sufficient money fof an adequate if modest 
 outfit, and Jeannette had sense and self-control enough 
 to keep her faithful to the rule she had laid down at 
 the first : "Not how much, but how good." 
 
 And after the shopping, the getting settled! No 
 body who has not played hero or heroine in the charm 
 ing domestic comedy of setting up housekeeping knows 
 what poetry and romance lurk amid such material 
 things as furniture, rugs, china, curtains, and kitchen 
 furnishings. Such a succession of problems in com 
 bination and balance and adjustment! Such incidents 
 and accidents calling for laughter and kisses and simu 
 lated commiseration! Such pretty debates and con 
 tentions, each performer striving to forestall the other's 
 self-denial. Such happy, clean disorder, of wrapping
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 17 
 
 paper and excelsior, of packing boxes and tissue, of 
 furniture out of place and hangings neither up nor 
 down ! Let those who have not lived all this think to 
 console themselves with whatever pretentious pleasure 
 they choose; they have missed something in itself bliss 
 ful and a producer of happy memories. 
 
 You would not expect a bridegroom thus occupied 
 to have much time or thought for the changes that had 
 been coming in Delafield. The unforeseen illness of his 
 loved pastor Drury had saddened J. W., but nothing 
 else had meant much in the first days after his return 
 from the Orient, until one morning Jeannette reminded 
 him that domestic questions might be related to civic 
 changes. 
 
 It was at breakfast, on the first day after Jeannette 
 had been willing to admit that most of the work of 
 getting settled was done. J. W. was living at the mo 
 ment, more than content with his bride, his home, and 
 the morning meal. Not so Jeannette, at least as to the 
 house. 
 
 "Now, I must see about getting regular help for the 
 washing and cleaning, J. W.," said she. "This house 
 will be a little too much for me, if you expect it to be 
 kept up as it deserves." 
 
 "That's all right," said J. W., "I want it to be just 
 whatever you want it to be. And, of course, you'll 
 need help." 
 
 Jeannette was thoughtful. "They say white help 
 is almost out of the question. I guess we'll have to get 
 a colored woman, though I don't know much about
 
 i8 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 Negroes. It ought not to be hard to get somebody, for 
 there certainly are a lot of Negroes in town now." 
 
 "Since you speak of it," J. W. assented, "it does 
 seem as though the complexion of Delafield had 
 changed some in the last year or two. We've always 
 had Negroes here, but now you meet them everywhere 
 in stores, on the street, in the factories, in the street 
 cars, and even in offices." 
 
 "They came in the Exodus we heard so much about 
 during the war," Jeannette observed. 
 
 "Yes," J. W. agreed, "that's so. You remember 
 what the pastor of our Negro church said about it 
 when he asked me to speak at that League Convention. 
 But I didn't suppose the newcomers would stay long." 
 
 "Well, they're here yet, most of them," Jeannette de 
 clared, "and I'm told that others have been coming 
 lately. Do you suppose that you could get hold of that 
 pastor? He might know of somebody who could 
 help me." 
 
 J. W. promptly supposed he could. "Let's see, what 
 was his name? Driver? That's it, Alexander Driver. 
 I'll look him up this very day." 
 
 So over he went to the Saint Mark's neighborhood 
 as soon as the proper allowance of time for the after- 
 breakfast farewells would permit. 
 
 At first he hardly recognized Saint Mark's. The im 
 provements which had been begun soon after his first 
 acquaintance with the Negro minister had become so 
 extensive that the whole plant looked new and much 
 larger, and it was not without a certain quiet dignity.
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 19 
 
 The pastor had a combination of study and office, 
 with telephone, typewriter, desk, and such like equip 
 ment; and there was a goodly array of books on the 
 shelves. 
 
 He recognized J. W. at once, and was quite willing 
 to be of service. 
 
 "Yes," he said when J. W. had put the case before 
 him, "I can send Mrs. Farwell a dependable woman, 
 and I shall be glad to do it. Many of our people are 
 out of work just now, and finding such places as I can 
 for them is part of my pastoral business." 
 
 "You will be doing us a great kindness," J. W. as 
 sured him. And then, as he looked around again, "By 
 the way," he said, "you must have been making a good 
 many changes since I sold you that bill of roofing." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said the preacher. "Maybe you re 
 member that the Board of Home Missions and Church 
 Extension made us an appropriation, and we matched 
 it by an equal amount raised right here. It was a stiff 
 pull, but we managed it, and the money made it possible 
 for us to put in all sorts of facilities that were badly 
 needed." 
 
 "As I remember," said J. W., "you had only one 
 room before, but now you seem to have quite a num 
 ber." 
 
 "Yes, that's so," said Pastor Driver. "About all 
 we could do before was to hold preaching and prayer- 
 meeting services. Now we have rooms for Sunday- 
 school classes, clubrooms, and equipment for various 
 other purposes, including a cafeteria which is open
 
 20 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 every day except Sunday. We have a parish visitor; 
 our Sunday school is big and growing bigger, we have 
 an Epworth League, a Junior League, two Mothers' 
 Clubs, a troop of Boy Scouts, and half a dozen evening 
 study classes." 
 
 "Then everything is going much better with you 
 than when I was here last?" suggested J. W. 
 
 "It is and it isn't," said Alexander Driver. "We're 
 pretty busy in the church, and things are really going 
 forward, but in the community as a whole I am not so 
 sure. Sometimes I think conditions are getting worse 
 instead of better." 
 
 "In what ways?" J. W. inquired, his curiosity 
 aroused. 
 
 "Well, in the relations between the races here in 
 Delafield," said the minister. "You see, when the first 
 influx of Negroes came to Delafield, everybody was so 
 busy with the war, and there was such a demand for 
 labor of any kind, that people were rather glad the 
 Negroes had come. Wages were high, everybody had 
 a job, and attention was centered upon the enemy across 
 the sea. It was no time for discovering occasions of 
 difference here, even though the old population of the 
 town was white and the new was black." 
 
 "That's right," said J. W. "I remember. And the 
 slump in business after the war began to make trouble, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "It certainly did. Jobs have been scarce, and there's 
 competition for them, black against white in many 
 cases. Some of the factories, which then were willing
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 21 
 
 enough to hire Negroes, have now let out Negroes 
 altogether, because of pressure from white workers. 
 Our people have no chance to exert pressure of that 
 sort, though they would do it if they could, I don't 
 doubt. Other factories have cut down on the number 
 of Negroes they are willing to employ. And it all 
 makes for bad feeling, especially when our people try 
 to get into the poorer-paid jobs by underbidding white 
 laborers. So now we have quarrels and fights and 
 trouble of many sorts." 
 
 J. W. was interested. He had not heard of these 
 things before, but he could see that they might affect 
 his own affairs. And, anyway, they affected Delafield, 
 which meant something to him as a citizen and a busi 
 ness man. 
 
 "Do you think it will come to anything serious?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Pastor Driver did think so. "The thing I fear most," 
 he said, "is that some of the rougher element among 
 the white people may try to drive or frighten the col 
 ored people out of the place. We have our own rough 
 element, of course, and any outbreak of that sort is 
 sure to bring on a clash. One or two houses bought by 
 colored people have already been burned, in very pe 
 culiar circumstances, and we have had other forms of 
 damage to property. And there's an even worse thing 
 going on." 
 
 "How could anything be worse than burning and 
 destruction ?" J. W. said, wonderingly. 
 
 "Much worse," Driver answered. "Some question-
 
 22 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 able resorts have been opened up in this part of town. 
 They are run by colored people, but they are said to be 
 owned and controlled by whites. The blacks get all 
 the blame, although we have tried to get the resorts 
 closed up, but the police department for some reason 
 is very slow to act. What I fear is that something may 
 break loose all of a sudden among these places, and if 
 it does, there is no telling how far it will go before 
 the sober good sense of both races can stop it." 
 
 "That is worse," said J. W., "if it is as you think. 
 But I can't believe you have any great cause for fear. 
 I've lived most of my life in this town, and you won't 
 find a more peaceable and law-abiding people anywhere. 
 Even if we have been getting new and maybe unde 
 sirable citizens, both black and white, I think the solid 
 good sense of the town will take care of any emer 
 gency." 
 
 "I hope you're right; with all my heart I do," said 
 the Negro pastor, "but I'm not altogether easy in my 
 mind about it." 
 
 J. W., as he had said, was unwilling to believe that 
 Delafield had in it any possibilities of lawlessness, and 
 so he was almost as unprepared for what befell before 
 that day was done as if he had not talked to Alexander 
 Driver at all. 
 
 Back from Saint Mark's, he put in a busy eight 
 hours at the store, and was as serene a picture of 
 healthily-tired young manhood as you could ask when 
 he turned in at the home gate and was met half way 
 down the path by Jeannette coming to give him wel-
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 23 
 
 come. She had put on her daintiest gown; she had a 
 supper ready which he knew would be a good one ; and 
 it was in the minds of them both to drive out after sup 
 per along the road of their lovers' dreams to the old 
 farm and the folks. 
 
 The farm was not especially lonely, with the two 
 younger children about, but with Marty too far away 
 for any but occasional visits and Jeannette busy with 
 a house of her own, Father and Mother Shenk felt the 
 absence of the older children. They welcomed the 
 visitors eagerly. The young folks told about their 
 new house and its furnishings to the accompaniment of 
 a running fire of questions from Ben and Alice. Then 
 they wandered out to the orchard, and by the light of 
 a lantern picked up a basket of apples to take home. 
 There was another basket all ready for them when they 
 got back to the house, packed with a card of honey, a 
 roll of butter, two or three cans of fruit, a jar of pickles, 
 and other good things which flourish nowhere except in 
 a real country larder. 
 
 It was after nine when they started back, and the 
 moon had vanished behind a bank of cloud. Thirty or 
 forty minutes later they saw the lights of Delafield. 
 As they entered the outskirts of the town, by the way 
 of the Negro settlement, it became evident that some 
 thing unusual was afoot. 
 
 By the dim light of the street lamps they made out, 
 as they passed, swift shadowy forms issuing from the 
 cottages men, women, and younger folk, some of 
 them half -clad, as though they had been called from
 
 24 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 preparations for bed. The honking of automobiles 
 mingled with a steadier, more sinister sound, the 
 swelling murmur of a crowd in great excitement. 
 
 A little further on, the street filled up with people so 
 that J. W. was afraid he might run into some heedless 
 figure. Steering his car into a side street, where Jean- 
 nette would be safe for the moment, J. W. stopped, 
 climbed out of the car, and pushed back into the crowd 
 afoot. 
 
 Everywhere men were shouting and gesticulating, 
 but, as usual, few knew what it was all about. J. W. 
 caught a swift-flung sentence or two as he moved 
 ahead. 
 
 "They got him, all right," he heard one man say. 
 
 "That nigger sure could run," said another. 
 
 "They'll fix him; he'll never do any mischief again," 
 said a third. 
 
 A fat man stood out on the running board of a car, 
 shouting, "Lynch him! Lynch him! Lynch him! 
 We'll teach them niggers a lesson. We ought to drive 
 the whole bunch out of town." 
 
 A few steps farther J. W. was in the thickest of the 
 crowd. At first he could not see what was at the center, 
 but soon he was looking over the shoulder of the man 
 in front of him, and discerned a prostrate form. 
 
 For the moment there was little stir at the heart of 
 the disturbance. The man on the ground seemed ex 
 hausted and spent, and those about him appeared un 
 decided about their next move. Two of them had lan 
 terns, by whose light J. W. could see that their captive,
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 25 
 
 for he was bound as well as fallen, was a Negro. He 
 was covered from head to foot with the dust of the 
 road. His clothes might have been respectable once, 
 but they were disreputable enough now. Most of them 
 had been torn from him. The rest hung in shreds and 
 tatters. He might have been anywhere from twenty- 
 five to forty. He lay there panting and fearful, while 
 his captors stood uncertainly yet threateningly over 
 him. 
 
 One reason for the comparative calm at the center 
 was an altercation going on at one side of the narrow 
 ing circle. One of the men was evidently the sheriff ; 
 he was bold enough or reckless enough to make him 
 self known. The other was a self-appointed leader of 
 the crowd. 
 
 "I tell you, he's our nigger," said this individual, a 
 big, wide-shouldered fellow, "we caught him, and we're 
 going to take care he gets what's coming to him." 
 
 "And I tell you you won't do anything of the sort," 
 said the sheriff. "There'll be no mob violence in this 
 town so long as I'm sheriff of Madison County." 
 
 "How about it, boys?" roared the big man. "Do 
 we stand for this? We chased him and we caught 
 him. Ain't he ours? I'll say he is. What say the rest 
 of you?" 
 
 There were coarse shouts of approval. 
 
 "Give him what's coming to him!" 
 
 "String him up!" 
 
 "Let him swing!" 
 
 Events had moved so rapidly that J. W. at first was
 
 26 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 rather dazed. But as the fearful meaning of these 
 cries forced itself into his mind he knew he must do 
 something. 
 
 "You're wrong, men," he cried out, outwardly calm 
 but deeply stirred within; "I don't know what this 
 Negro has done, but this is a town of law, and ours is 
 a country of law. Even a criminal is entitled to a 
 chance, and a fair trial. You can't " 
 
 "And who might you be?" said the spokesman. 
 
 "Never mind who I am," said J. W. "I've lived in 
 this town most of my life, and I'm not ready to think 
 its citizens will stand for disgracing its good name by 
 mob violence." 
 
 "Oh, shut up," the big man said in angry disgust. 
 "Talk's cheap, and we mean business. We'll hang this 
 nigger now, and you can make your speech after 
 ward. Come on, boys, bring the rope. One of you 
 take an end of it and climb that telegraph pole." 
 
 As he spoke he reached for the rope and began to 
 make a noose in it. In a moment it was done, and the 
 loop deftly slipped over the head of the frightened 
 Negro. "Hurry up with that other end of the rope." 
 
 Another of the crowd, helped in his first efforts by 
 ready hands, began to climb the pole, but it was a long- 
 ish way to the first cross-piece, and he never reached it. 
 
 No man could have said how the thing might have 
 resulted, but the elements took a hand just then, and 
 put a swift and almost comic end to the possible 
 tragedy. For some time the clouds had been piling up 
 overhead, with occasional rumblings and premonitory
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 27 
 
 flashes of lightning, but the crowd had been too deeply 
 absorbed in its own storm to think of any other. Now 
 a few big drops fell, followed with startling sudden 
 ness by the swish of wind-driven torrents, while 
 hats and tree branches, tossed by the impetuous gusts, 
 turned every man's attention to his own safety. The 
 lightning became livid, blinding, fearsome; the thun 
 der crashed about men's ears, a terrifying tempest of 
 sound. 
 
 And the mob did not break up; it vanished. One 
 moment there was a murderous crowd milling around 
 a cowering prisoner; the next, there was a deserted 
 street, save for the four men who had been the center 
 of it all. There lay the Negro, bound hand and foot. 
 There stood the sheriff, suddenly freed from any neces 
 sity of making good his defiance of the mob. There 
 waited J. W., and beside him the hard-voiced volunteer 
 who had essayed to lead the lynching party, his hand 
 still on the rope he had knotted and put over the Ne 
 gro's head. 
 
 With an oath he turned to the sheriff, tossed the wet 
 rope toward him and shouted above the storm, "Here, 
 take your nigger if you want him," and was gone. 
 
 Unperturbed, the sheriff reached into his pocket, 
 pulled out a pair of handcuffs, snapped them on the 
 Negro's hands, loosened his bonds, and ordered him 
 up. Together they started down the street, while J. W. 
 hurried back to Jeannette and the car. 
 
 The whole affair had only taken a few minutes ; to 
 Jeannette, mystified and frightened, an eternity; to
 
 28 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 J. W., absorbed and tense, no time at all. He found 
 her safe but drenched, where he had left her. She had 
 tried to protect herself with what coverings she could 
 find under the car seat, but with small success. As for 
 J. W., he was soaked to the skin. 
 
 The talk on the way home was mere syllables, but 
 once in the house they became busy finding dry cloth 
 ing, and as soon as they were settled before the gas 
 fire-log, Jeannette demanded the whole story. 
 
 "I didn't get it all straight," said J. W., "but, as near 
 as I could find out in the excitement, this Negro had 
 killed a white child. Evidently, the crowd had been 
 chasing him for quite a distance. From his looks I 
 judge they had some fight when they caught him. As 
 I came up they were trying to scare the sheriff into 
 keeping out of the fray, and he was showing fight. 
 But they might have won out if that storm hadn't 
 broken just when it did. That wind and rain sure put 
 a damper on their spirits. The crowd seemed to fade 
 away almost between two lightning flashes. It was 
 almost funny, but it was mighty lucky too. This town 
 wouldn't have lived down the disgrace of it for a 
 generation if they had killed that Negro. Doubtless 
 he ought to be punished, but well, this mob violence 
 stuff has got to be stopped in America, that's all. I'd 
 like to know the whole story, but I guess we'll get it 
 in the morning." 
 
 There was much talk in Delafield the next morning. 
 The story of the events of the preceding night had 
 already been told in a thousand different ways, and no
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 29 
 
 one seemed to know quite what the truth of the matter 
 was. 
 
 Opinions with reference to the threatened mob action 
 differed widely. A few noisy ones said that the Ne 
 groes were a bad lot anyway, and that Delafield was 
 getting too many of them. They hadn't any business 
 in the North, or in the United States, for that matter. 
 They ought to be sent back to Africa, where they came 
 from. This was a white man's country, and if the 
 Negroes didn't like it, they could get out. 
 
 Others were more restrained. They admitted that 
 this particular Negro might have deserved to be shot or 
 hung, but they were mighty glad that something had 
 stopped the proceeding just the same, for it would 
 have been a disgrace upon Delafield which they could 
 never have lived down. Delafield had too good a repu 
 tation for law and order to squander it in revenge on 
 a Negro, especially since the law would see that he got 
 all that he deserved. 
 
 Long before the time for the informal hearing of 
 the case arrived that morning, it had become more or 
 less common knowledge that the Negro had not really 
 killed anyone, although it was intimated that he had 
 attempted to do so. Strangely enough, it was not until 
 the large crowd had assembled in the courtroom that 
 the real truth came out. 
 
 Rarely had any event caused such excitement in 
 Delafield. The courtroom was filled to capacity with 
 a promiscuous throng. Every seat was taken, and 
 many people were standing outside in the corridor.
 
 30 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 The sheriff was on hand with his prisoner ; J. W. and 
 the Rev. Alexander Driver had seats down in front; 
 the self-appointed mob-leader of the night before was 
 nowhere to be seen; but others who had knowledge of 
 the affair were there. 
 
 To J. W. the prisoner looked much less disreputable 
 than he had the night before. His dirty, torn clothing 
 had been replaced by other garments, which, although 
 they did not exactly fit, at least covered his body. His 
 face was that of a young man in the early thirties, and 
 he seemed to have neither the appearance nor the man 
 ner of a hardened criminal. J. W. noted all this, and 
 wondered to himself how a man with so inoffensive a 
 bearing could be so morally debased. 
 
 In the courtroom there seemed to be little evidence 
 to substantiate the rumors which had been so widely 
 circulated a few hours before. Several individuals told 
 what they knew of the affair, and at last the prisoner 
 was given a chance to tell his own story. In response 
 to the promptings of court officials he told who he was 
 and where he came from, and undertook to explain his 
 part in the events of the preceding night's escapade. 
 
 He was born and raised, he said, in the State of Mis 
 sissippi. For years as a boy he worked in the cotton 
 fields. He lived with his parents and attended the 
 little country church when they had a preacher, and 
 went to school when they had a teacher, which 
 wasn't often. At last the chance came for him to go 
 to a school for Negroes called Rust College, at Holly 
 Springs, Mississippi. He worked his way through,
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 31 
 
 and graduated from the normal department. He mar 
 ried a girl who also attended Rust College, and after 
 graduation he became a school-teacher. He taught for 
 several years, working in the fields during part of the 
 year. During the Great War he had come North, 
 lured by the demand for men, the attractive wages 
 promised, and by what seemed to be larger opportuni 
 ties for his two children. Since that time he had been 
 living in Delafield, and he had liked it so well that he 
 had purchased a little home there, and was regularly 
 employed as a driver of one of the trucks at the box 
 factory. The day before he had been sent with a load 
 to a neighboring town. As he was returning in the 
 evening and was rounding the corner into the main 
 street a child had suddenly darted in front of the 
 truck. He had applied the brakes at once, but al 
 though the machine was moving at a modest rate of 
 speed it had struck the child before it stopped. Some 
 one on the sidewalk screamed ; a number of men poured 
 out of a poolroom nearby, and the crowd grew rapidly. 
 A man carried the child into a house, and then the 
 crowd turned its attention to the driver. Some pretty 
 rough language was used, and threats of violence were 
 made. By this time the crowd was so large that the 
 Negro was thoroughly frightened, and seizing what 
 looked like a favorable opportunity, he bolted and ran. 
 Almost by instinct he had turned toward the Negro 
 section of town, and the crowd was soon in full pur 
 suit. Apparently, few of them knew just what had 
 happened, but the general impression seemed to be that
 
 32 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 they were chasing a Negro who had killed a white child. 
 At last far from the scene of the accident he was 
 cornered in what proved to be a blind alley, and was 
 captured after a desperate struggle. The rest of the 
 story was already known. 
 
 At this juncture a man sitting several rows back in 
 the courtroom arose. He was recognized as one of the 
 local doctors. He said: "If it is of interest to the 
 court, I might say that I have been attending the child 
 who was hurt. I was called hurriedly last evening, and 
 I found that, while the child had evidently been 
 knocked down and frightened speechless, by the time 
 I arrived it was sitting up in its mother's lap and had 
 almost forgotten its experience. I could find no injury 
 and no mark of any kind upon its body. This morning, 
 on my way to make another important visit, I called 
 again and found the child playing normally." 
 
 Following this statement by the doctor the Rev. 
 Alexander Driver asked for a chance to say a word. 
 "Judge," said he, "I am the pastor of Saint Mark's 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. I've known this young 
 man and his family ever since they came to Delafield, 
 and I believe every word he says is true. His name is 
 George Lester, just as he told you. He comes of a 
 hard-working Methodist family in Mississippi, and he 
 was educated at Rust College, one of the schools for 
 Negroes established and maintained by the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. Since he moved to Delafield he and 
 his wife have been members of my church. They con 
 tribute to its support ; he is an official of the church, and
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 33 
 
 is superintendent of the Sunday school. His wife is an 
 educated woman ; they have two fine children, and their 
 home is a happy one. I called there this morning, and 
 I can assure you that everything he has said is true." 
 
 The upshot of the matter was that the hearing was 
 quickly ended, and for want of any case against the 
 prisoner he was discharged. There was nothing left 
 for the onlookers to do but to disperse. Once outside of 
 the building the crowd broke up into smaller groups. 
 An hour later some of these groups were still in earnest 
 discussion of a subject which twenty- four hours pre 
 viously had been of little concern to any man among 
 them. 
 
 It was rare, indeed, for Delafield to become so 
 aroused over any matter as it had over this incident. 
 But events had brought forcibly to the attention of the 
 people that right here in their own town some prob 
 lems of race adjustment must be faced which they had 
 not previously clearly recognized. When it was noised 
 about that the new Methodist minister who had suc 
 ceeded the Rev. Walter Drury now that that gentle 
 man was at least temporarily incapacitated for service 
 was to discuss on Sunday the matter of racial adjust 
 ments, a good many people who were accustomed to 
 sleep late on Sunday morning arranged to forego that 
 luxury for once. 
 
 The church was crowded to the doors before the 
 service began. The Rev. Conrad Schuster had not 
 been in Delafield long, but he was evidently a compe 
 tent and devoted minister. He conducted the opening
 
 34 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 worship with effective dignity, made a few necessary 
 announcements, sat with bowed head while the choir 
 sang, and then rose amid an expectant and almost pain 
 ful stillness. 
 
 "Friends," he began, "I propose this morning to 
 preach an old-fashioned gospel sermon, a sermon as 
 old-fashioned as Jesus Christ himself in fact, as old- 
 fashioned as the prophets who preceded Jesus by hun 
 dreds of years." 
 
 He smiled a little as he said : "I have been considera 
 bly perplexed to select a text for this sermon, because 
 there are so many texts which seem to fit it so well. 
 We might take the words of that sturdy prophet Amos, 
 'But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness 
 as a mighty stream.' Or we might take Micah's ques 
 tion, 'What doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do 
 justly and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with 
 thy God?' or the words of Jesus himself, 'Woe unto 
 you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe 
 mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the 
 weightier matters of the law; justice, and mercy, and 
 faith.' 
 
 "In other words," the preacher explained, "though 
 I propose to preach the old-fashioned religion of jus 
 tice, instead of talking to you abstractly I wish to 
 apply what I have to say to a most urgent question 
 which we have long faced as a nation and as a church. 
 Just now it has come home to us as a community. I 
 mean the question of race relations in America, the re 
 lations between the white citizen and the black."
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 35 
 
 The congregation settled itself to listen. It felt that 
 there would be something to challenge its interest. 
 
 The preacher went on : "There are some people who 
 say that there is no problem at all. But that is foolish. 
 It is as senseless as the folly of the Hindu ruler who 
 thought to deny the presence of death in the drinking 
 water by smashing the magnifying glass which had re 
 vealed its dangers. 
 
 "This business of getting along with people, with 
 the folk next door and with the individuals under our 
 own roof, may easily become the chief difficulty of life. 
 The more unlike two individuals or two groups are, 
 the more difficult their adjustment becomes. The more 
 we know each other the more readily we may under 
 stand each other's actions and motives, and the oc 
 casions of friction often decrease as this mutual un 
 derstanding increases. 
 
 "When it comes to understanding a whole people," 
 said Pastor Schuster, "we need to know something 
 about their history. The first Negroes were landed in 
 America nearly six months before the Pilgrim Fathers 
 arrived, in 1620. Of course they did not come here 
 voluntarily, but were brought as slaves direct from 
 Africa. After that first boat landed its human freight 
 on the shores of Virginia in 1619, through long years 
 other boats came similarly laden, and our Negro popu 
 lation grew in two ways by importation and by nat 
 ural increase. When the slave trade was stopped the 
 number of Negroes continued to increase. By the time 
 the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863
 
 36 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 we had nearly four million Negroes in this country. 
 To-day the number has reached ten and a half mil 
 lions. 
 
 "For many years the Negro problem was largely a 
 Southern problem. It did not trouble the North. Now 
 it is not confined to any one section of the country," 
 the preacher reminded them. "In fact," said he, "the 
 largest Negro settlements in the United States are to 
 day in the North. The industrial conditions produced 
 by the Great War brought hundreds of thousands of 
 Negroes North, and many of them have come to stay. 
 They are settled in many places, including Delafield, 
 as we have been forcibly reminded this past week. Now 
 we see that Delafield must come to think clearly about 
 this situation so directly thrust before us. 
 
 "Repeatedly it has been proposed to end the Negro 
 question in America by colonizing all American Ne 
 groes in Africa. At one time there was a society or 
 ganized for that purpose. The promoters did their 
 best, and they actually established the state of Liberia 
 on the West Coast of Africa, but after they had ex 
 hausted their efforts and the society had collapsed, 
 America had many more Negroes than when they be 
 gan. Any attempt to move the Negroes gradually to 
 Africa is doomed to failure. They would increase in 
 America faster than ships could carry them away. 
 Deportation would be a task compared to which the 
 transportation of our army to France, with its un- 
 computed costs, would be a puny enterprise. By its 
 mere size and expense the project of transporting the
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 37 
 
 Negro to Africa is forever shut out of the realm of 
 possibility. 
 
 "And we could not afford to ignore the injustice of 
 exiling millions of unwilling people, whose ancestry 
 probably averages more generations in this country 
 than any other racial group except the American In 
 dian. American Negroes, with the exception of a few 
 born in the West Indies and similar places, are native 
 born. That can not be said of any other race group of 
 similar size in our population. The Negro is a real 
 American, and he is here to stay. We cannot get rid 
 of him if we would, and we would not if we could. 
 
 "He has already made an enormous contribution to 
 our national life in a multitude of ways, and he will 
 do more as his educational opportunities increase and 
 as his religious standards are lifted." 
 
 Now the preacher's voice took on a deeper note of 
 seriousness. "In spite, however, of the fact that the 
 Negro is a real American," said he, "we continue to 
 let him be treated as less than a man, and in many plans 
 we consent that he shall be deprived of the privileges 
 of citizenship. I think we must admit that the Negro 
 is not given to complaining, but sometimes he speaks 
 out. 
 
 "A few years ago a Negro president of one of the 
 Methodist Episcopal schools for colored people in the 
 South said : 'When I went away to school I was taught 
 that God is our Father. I was taught to pray, "Our 
 Father, who art in heaven." I was taught that God is 
 no respecter of persons, that he has made of one blood
 
 38 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 all nations. I was taught that our country guaranteed 
 to every one the right to Life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness. I learned the famous words, "Give me 
 liberty or give me death." Now, I obey the laws; I 
 love my neighbors ; I pay my taxes ; I preach the gospel 
 of good will and usefulness; I turn the other cheek. 
 I begged twice to be permitted to join the army. I 
 would die for Old Glory. But I find, with that noble 
 Southern white man, ex-Congressman W. H. Fleming, 
 that "taxation without representation is unjust except 
 as to Negroes ; equal rights to all and special privileges 
 to none is a good doctrine except as to Negroes; all 
 men are created free and equal except as to Negroes ; 
 this is a government of the people and by the people 
 except as to Negroes." I am taxed, but I cannot 
 vote. I was in a Northern city, a stranger and hungry. 
 I had money. There was an abundance of food, but I 
 was compelled to feast on a box of crackers and a piece 
 of cheese. I did not ask to eat with white people, but 
 I did ask to eat. I was traveling. I got off at a station, 
 almost starved. I begged a restaurant keeper to put a 
 lunch in a sack and to sell it to me out of the window. 
 He refused. I was obliged to travel another hundred 
 miles before I could get a sandwich.' And then he 
 adds, 'It is true that I feel a kind of soul aristocracy, 
 which is unruffled by many discriminations and annoy 
 ances.' 
 
 "That, my friends," said the preacher, impressively, 
 "is the voice, not of a Bolshevist, but of an ardent 
 patriot who loved his country, but who grieved to see
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 39 
 
 the object of his love tolerating injustice to millions of 
 devoted citizens because of the color of the skins which 
 God had seen fit to give them. But even he did not 
 mention some of the most flagrant abuses which 
 threaten the peace and safety of our colored fellow 
 citizens. 
 
 "Think for a moment of the evil of mob violence. 
 Even in our own well-ordered town within a few days 
 we were on the verge of doing a terrible injustice to a 
 man who proved to be entirely innocent of the charge 
 which was made against him. But suppose he had 
 been guilty? Is it not the glory of our country that 
 we guarantee a fair and just trial even to the criminal ? 
 For many years our country has been cursed with lynch- 
 ings. During the last generation, since accurate rec 
 ords have been kept, the number of lynchings in the 
 United States has varied from fifty to two hundred 
 and twenty- four each year, and while some of the vic 
 tims have been members of the white race, the most of 
 them have been Negroes. They have been lynched on 
 almost every conceivable pretext. 
 
 "But what is even worse than the killing often is the 
 fiendishness with which it is done. Is it any wonder 
 that in 1919 a member of the British House of Com 
 mons proposed that a commission be appointed to visit 
 the United States to investigate the treatment of the 
 American Negro? What can America say against 
 atrocities elsewhere when such things are permitted 
 here? 
 
 "It was not long ago that a noted English writer
 
 40 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 came to this country and spent months in studying the 
 Negro situation here. He described conditions which 
 he found and events which he witnessed and which 
 came to his attention. In many cases the facts were 
 too revolting to be put into words. Then he added: 
 'It was America's glorious May, when she was pouring 
 troops into Europe and winning the war; hundreds of 
 thousands of Negroes were clad in the uniform of the 
 army and were fighting for "freedom and justice" in 
 Europe. The moral eloquence of the President was in 
 all men's minds. America had the chance to take the 
 moral leadership of the world.' Later he adds : 'The 
 point is that America as a whole cannot afford to 
 tolerate what is done locally in particular States. The 
 baleful happenings in these States rob Americans in 
 other States of their good name, and spoil America's 
 reputation before the world. The fact that the terms 
 of the Constitution are not carried out decreases the 
 value of American citizenship throughout. And the 
 growing scandal causes America's opinions on world 
 politics to be seriously discounted.' ' 
 
 The sermon was longer than usual, and though no 
 one seemed to take notice of the time, the preacher 
 felt he must make an end. "Before I close," he said, 
 "I must add a word relative to the malicious lies which 
 are circulating concerning the naturally criminal char 
 acter of the Negro. There are, of course, many bad 
 Negroes, just as there are many bad white men, and 
 they should be treated with equal severity. Of the 
 record of the Negro as a race, however, we perhaps
 
 A CRISIS IN DELAFIELD 41 
 
 have no better testimony than that famous tribute 
 of a Southern statesman and journalist, Henry W. 
 Grady. Speaking of the period during the Civil War 
 he said, 'History has no parallel to the faith kept by 
 the Negro during the war. Often five hundred Negroes 
 to a single white man, yet through these dusky throngs 
 the women and children passed in safety, and unpro 
 tected homes rested in peace. A thousand torches in 
 black hands would have disbanded every Southern army 
 not one was lighted. When freedom came to him 
 after years of waiting it was all the sweeter because 
 the black hands from which the shackles fell were 
 stainless of a single crime against the helpless women 
 and children committed to their care.' ' 
 
 There were other things in the sermon that morning, 
 and many dinners were late that day as a result. But 
 not an individual left until the end; and when the bene 
 diction was pronounced the audience dispersed more 
 quietly than usual. It seemed that every one had 
 plenty to think about, and for once they were really 
 thinking. 
 
 J. W. and Jeannette walked nearly a block before 
 either of them spoke, then J. W. said : "Well, I didn't 
 know I was so ignorant. I learned more things this 
 morning about the Negro situation than I ever knew 
 before. I hadn't realized that it was such a mixed-up 
 question. I guess we are a long ways from the practi 
 cal application of the religion of justice of which the 
 minister spoke. I suspect that right here in Delafield 
 many unfair things are being done and unjust condi-
 
 42 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 tions permitted to exist, just because people like us 
 don't stop to think and apply the religions we profess." 
 "I've no doubt you are right," acquiesced Jeannette, 
 whose mind for the moment was upon the problem of 
 the first real Sunday dinner in the new home, rather 
 than upon the Negro problem of Delafield.
 
 IN THE LAND OF THE COTTON AND THE CANE
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH SOME NEW 
 NEIGHBORS 
 
 JE ANNETTE and J. W. were still at the breakfast 
 table Monday morning when they were interrupted by 
 a gentle rapping at the kitchen door. Jeannette went 
 to the door, and found there a plainly but neatly- 
 dressed colored woman who inquired, "Is this Mrs. 
 Farwell?" 
 
 "It is," said Jeannette, although she was herself a 
 little surprised at the promptness of her answer, in 
 view of the fact that she was not yet quite used to "Mrs. 
 Farwell." 
 
 "I am Stella Waldron," said the woman. "My pas 
 tor, Brother Driver, said you were looking for some 
 help." 
 
 "Yes, I am," answered Jeannette. "Won't you come 
 right in and sit down? I'll be through with breakfast 
 in a minute and then we can talk." 
 
 "Your friend, the Rev. Mr. Driver, is certainly 
 prompt in keeping his promises," said Jeannette, as she 
 rejoined J. W. at the table. 
 
 "He told me quite a good many of his people are out 
 of work just now, and I guess he is anxious to help 
 them," answered J. W. 
 
 43
 
 44 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "I hope you have a good day," he continued. He 
 rather "sensed" a busy time in the home too. "I have 
 plenty to do down at the store to-day, and probably I 
 won't be home for lunch. But you can count on my 
 being home early to-night, instead," he added, as he 
 rose from the table and prepared to depart. 
 
 Every day was a busy day at the store of the J. W. 
 Farwell Hardware Company, but J. W., Jr., was in 
 love with his business, and the livelier things moved 
 the happier he was. On this morning the hardware 
 world looked particularly good to him, and he gave 
 himself to its various activities with unusual zest. 
 
 Along about the middle of the forenoon he had oc 
 casion to make a trip to the freight station, and he 
 climbed up to the seat beside one of the Negro truck 
 drivers who was going that way. 
 
 "You're a new man, aren't you?" said J. W. as they 
 drove out of the yard. 
 
 "Yes, I've only been working for the J. W. Farwell 
 people a short time," said the Negro. 
 
 "What is your name ?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Me? My name's Mose Mose Adams," he an 
 swered. 
 
 "And where did you come from?" continued J. W. 
 
 "I came from Mississippi, away down South in the 
 land of cotton," said the Negro, chuckling to himself, 
 as he spoke. 
 
 "Didn't you like Mississippi?" J. W. persisted. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I like Mississippi all right," the other as 
 sented.
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 45 
 
 "Then why did you leave and come up here?" said 
 J. W., with his new interest in the Negro situation sup 
 plementing a healthy natural curiosity. 
 
 "Well, I don't know as I can rightly say," said the 
 Negro. "You see, I was born and raised down there. 
 My father was a slave, and after the war he bought a 
 little piece of land right close to where he had always 
 lived. We all grew up there, and it was home to us. 
 Late years, though, things began to change. Finally 
 two Negroes and two white men got to fighting and 
 one of the white men was killed. 
 
 "But that wasn't the end of the story. The two Ne 
 groes ran away and escaped, but a mob gathered and 
 they drove every Negro out of the country for miles 
 around. It didn't make any difference that we had 
 lived there all our lives and had our homes there; we 
 just had to leave." 
 
 Up to this point J. W. had listened intently to the 
 matter-of-fact recital of what seemed in many respects 
 a very unusual story. Now he interrupted: "I can 
 hardly believe that you are telling me the truth." 
 
 "It's true, all right," said Mose Adams ; "I know, for 
 I was there." 
 
 "Didn't any of the white folks make objection?" 
 asked J. W. 
 
 "Yes," said the driver, "the storekeepers and other 
 business men in town finally put a stop to it, for the 
 Negroes were the biggest part of their customers, and 
 their trade was being ruined." 
 
 "But they couldn't take your land away from you,
 
 46 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 even if they could drive you off from it!" J. W. sug 
 gested. 
 
 "They might about as well," the driver declared. 
 "They wouldn't let us live on it, and they wouldn't let 
 us sell it to other Negroes. So we had to sell for just 
 what the first white man offered us, and that wasn't 
 much, I can tell you. And as for the Negro school and 
 the church in the community, they were wiped out of 
 existence; there just weren't any more Negroes left." 
 
 "What did you and your family do?" said J. W. 
 
 "At first we just didn't know what to do, but by and 
 by we decided to move up to Birmingham, Alabama, 
 and try living in the city," answered the driver. 
 
 "Did you like it better there?" was J. W.'s next 
 question. 
 
 "Well, I got a job in a coal mine, and I was 
 earning more money than ever before, and then they 
 put me in jail." 
 
 "What did you do to get into jail?" ejaculated J. W. 
 
 "I didn't do anything," the Negro said, stolidly. 
 "There was a little trouble and the sheriff just came 
 out and took about fifty of us away to board. That's 
 the way he made his money." 
 
 "I don't see how he made any money out of that," 
 said J. W. 
 
 "Well, he made it, all right. The law allowed him 
 thirty cents a day for boarding each prisoner, and he 
 fed us for ten cents a day. I heard that one sheriff 
 made twenty-five thousand dollars one year just board 
 ing prisoners."
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 47 
 
 "Well, it sounds like a profitable business," said 
 J. W., "but it must have been rather hard on the pris 
 oners. I wouldn't care to go to jail just for the benefit 
 of the sheriff, and I certainly wouldn't care to be 
 boarded for ten cents a day." 
 
 "It was hard on us, but it was hard on the mine boss 
 too. He couldn't keep his men, because the sheriff had 
 them in jail all the time." 
 
 "I shouldn't think the employers would have stood 
 for that," said J. W. 
 
 "Well, they did fight the system, but it took them 
 eight years to get it stopped," said the Negro. 
 
 "I suppose you left as soon as you were out of jail," 
 continued J. W. 
 
 "No," said the driver, "not right off. I got another 
 job after that, but we began to hear about the good 
 times up North. The more we heard the more we 
 wanted to come. There was a paper from Chicago 
 we used to get hold of and read and read. It told all 
 about the high wages and the freedom and the good 
 schools. And then the colored folks began to leave. 
 After quite a few had left the white folks decided they 
 didn't want the Negroes to go, because they needed us 
 to do the work." 
 
 "But what could they do to hold you?" J. W. asked, 
 incredulously. 
 
 "Lots," the driver answered. "In one city they 
 called out the police, and arrested Negroes who tried 
 to purchase railroad tickets; in other places they took 
 people forcibly from the trains; one mayor wired to
 
 48 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 the president of a great railroad and asked him to stop 
 the selling of tickets to Negroes. There was a lot of 
 talk, but we kept right on wanting to go. After a while 
 my boy went to work with the Pullman Company, and 
 he sent me some money, and I slipped away and came 
 up. When I got located and got a job I sent for the 
 whole family, and so here we are." 
 
 "Sure enough, here we are," said J. W. as the truck 
 suddenly stopped at the freight house door. 
 
 This truck-seat talk with Mose Adams rather stuck 
 in J. W.'s mind, and he came back to it many times 
 during the afternoon. "That man's story would make 
 a book in itself," he thought, "and yet he seems to take 
 it all as a matter of course. I wonder if every Negro 
 who has come into Delafield has a story. Probably so, 
 and maybe some of them more interesting and thrilling 
 than Mose's." 
 
 Some way he had scarcely thought much about them 
 as individuals before, with individual problems, and 
 sometimes individual tragedies as well. They didn't 
 seem to be so different from other folks, but he guessed 
 they had more difficulties to contend with than people 
 like himself who were born in comfortable homes and 
 had so much done for them. 
 
 J. W. was still meditating as he made his way home 
 ward, but the sight of Jeannette coming to meet him 
 turned his thoughts into other and pleasanter channels. 
 "Surely," thought he, "I am the most fortunate man 
 in the world." 
 
 At the supper table Jeannette said, "I told Stella that
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 49 
 
 if she would stay and wash the dishes, we would take 
 her home after supper." 
 
 "And what's to hinder our going for a little drive 
 ourselves ?" queried her husband. 
 
 "Nothing at all," acquiesced Jeannette, without tak 
 ing the trouble to explain that this was exactly the idea 
 which she had in mind. 
 
 "By the way," said J. W., "I got acquainted with one 
 of our Negro truck drivers down at the store to-day, 
 a new man. He's had quite a life. I learned a lot of 
 things from him." 
 
 So he told her the story of Mose Adams. 
 
 Jeannette listened to the end, and then she laughed. 
 "That sermon Sunday must have given us all a new 
 interest in our colored neighbors. I've been pumping 
 Stella all day, and like you I learned things which I 
 never knew before." 
 
 "All right," said J. W., "story for story is fair. 
 Let's have Stella's." 
 
 "Well," said Jeannette, not to be outdone, "it seems 
 that she has lived most of her life in Morristown, Ten 
 nessee. Her father and mother were both slaves 
 there. After emancipation they attended a school es 
 tablished in the town by the Freedmen's Aid Society of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, and they learned to 
 read and write. Even her father's father went to night 
 school there at the same time, although he was an old 
 man. He didn't get very far, of course, but he learned 
 to read a little. When Stella got big enough she at 
 tended this school too and finished the tenth grade.
 
 SO J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 She taught school for a year or two, and then she mar 
 ried a man named Waldron. They got along pretty 
 well, and they bought a little home in Morristown. 
 Three years ago the husband died, and Stella was left 
 with two girls. They are both students now at Morris- 
 town Normal and Industrial Academy, the same school 
 that their mother and father and their grandmother 
 and grandfather and their great-grandfather attended. 
 Of course the school has grown since those early days, 
 but isn't it interesting that so many generations of a 
 single family should have attended this one school ?" 
 
 "How does she happen to be so far away from her 
 children?" J. W. wanted to know. 
 
 "Why," Jeannette explained, "she has a sister in 
 Morristown who takes care of the girls, and she is up 
 here earning money to send them to school. She wants 
 them to graduate from the normal department and 
 take up teaching. She lives with friends up here, and 
 she goes back to Tennessee for several months each 
 year." 
 
 "That was what the colored folk would call a power 
 ful sermon last Sunday," J. W. said, musingly. "If 
 it hadn't been for that sermon, neither of us would 
 have paid much attention to our truck-driver and laun 
 dress." 
 
 "You're right," said Jeannette, "I suppose I wouldn't 
 even have cared, but I am interested now, all right." 
 
 After taking Stella Waldron home J. W. decided to 
 drive past the Saint Mark's parsonage and thank Pas 
 tor Driver for his courtesy in finding them some help.
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 51 
 
 The minister was in his front yard as they drove up, 
 and he came out to the walk. After both the Far wells 
 had spoken their thanks, J. W. changed the subject. 
 
 "Our pastor preached us quite a sermon last Sun 
 day," said he, "on the old-fashioned gospel of justice 
 as applied to the relation between black men and white 
 men in America. I learned a lot. I confess that I 
 hadn't realized that there was so much cause for se 
 rious and careful concern." 
 
 "Yes, there is a good deal of trouble coming up all 
 the time," said Alexander Driver. "Of course it's 
 worse in some sections than in others." 
 
 "Well, what do you think is to be the outcome of it 
 all?" said J. W. 
 
 "I don't know. Nobody does. But I'm a natural op 
 timist," said the pastor, "and so I just naturally believe 
 that, everything considered, there's a steady improve 
 ment. One thing I know : all sorts of changes are hap 
 pening; and while some of these changes are discour 
 aging, I think more are pretty encouraging. Ignorance 
 is the big trouble, on both sides. If the black man and 
 the white man understood each other better, some of 
 the worst difficulties would smooth themselves out." 
 
 "You're right about blaming ignorance for a good 
 deal," J. W. confessed. "That's my fix. What I 
 don't know about the matter would fill a big book. 
 But the whole thing is so new to me." 
 
 "In the South," the preacher replied, "things have 
 changed enormously in the last few years. Slavery 
 was a terrible thing, even at its best, and it
 
 52 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 usually wasn't at its best, but it did bring the 
 Negro and the white man into close touch with 
 each other. The slave understood the master and the 
 master understood the slave. The children of the 
 master and of the slave played together and grew up 
 together. Now all that is changed, and there seems to 
 be a great gulf fixed between the younger generation 
 of the two races. An entirely new and different sort 
 of Negro has been produced by what education could 
 be had, by practical experience in business and in the 
 professions and arts. This new Negro has learned a 
 new respect for his race, and a new sense of racial 
 unity. Some folks think that they can deal with the 
 new generation the way they dealt with the old, and it 
 doesn't work. The Negro has for a long time been the 
 child-man of the South ; now he is beginning to grow 
 up. He is still of the South, mostly, but it will be fatal 
 to continue to treat him as a child." 
 
 J. W. interrupted : "I wish you would tell me what 
 you mean by that." 
 
 The pastor smiled. "Let me illustrate," said he. 
 "A great leader and orator in the South where it has 
 for years been the boast that 'We understand the nig 
 ger, 5 said recently from the platform, 'Yes, my friends, 
 we understand the nigger ; but I am afraid we do not 
 understand the Negro/ ' 
 
 And Pastor Driver smjiled again, though rather 
 sadly, as he said, "Brother Farwell, that's the point. 
 The Negro doesn't care to force himself upon the white 
 man ; he is not mourning that the white man does not
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 53 
 
 invite the colored man into his home; he recognizes 
 the right of every man to choose his guests and asso 
 ciates; nor is the Negro seeking to marry the white 
 man's daughter. What he does want, however, is the 
 chance to live his own life as a self-respecting citizen of 
 the United States; he wants the privilege of living, 
 working, voting, holding property, paying taxes, send 
 ing his children to school, selecting his own friends, 
 and conducting the other normal activities of life with 
 the same sense of personal safety and public regard as 
 is taken for granted by citizens of other complexions. 
 Some white men don't seem to understand this, or else 
 they misrepresent the case by claiming that the Negro 
 wants something more than this, as well as something 
 quite different." 
 
 "Isn't there some way for the two races to be brought 
 into touch with each other, so that some of their mis 
 understandings could be ironed out before there is a 
 worse estrangement ?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Yes, there is a plan for doing exactly that thing," 
 said Alexander Driver. "It has already been put into 
 operation in many places, in the South particularly, 
 and it has a heap of encouragement in it just now. The 
 plan calls for the organization of 'Interracial Coun 
 cils.' These councils are nothing more than commit 
 tees made up of the best available representatives of 
 both races. They take hold of difficulties when they 
 arise, and also they go into conditions which are likely 
 to develop into difficulties if let alone. Since fair- 
 minded men of both races are in these councils, they
 
 54 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 get the knowledge and viewpoint of whites as well as 
 blacks." 
 
 "There's something in that idea," said J. W. "What's 
 to hinder our having something like that in this town ?" 
 
 "It certainly would be a great help to me in my 
 work, if you'll let me seem to speak selfishly," said 
 Alexander Driver. "Of course the relations of the 
 races aren't nearly so tense here as they are in hundreds 
 of other towns, and yet there are half a dozen matters 
 right now that I would like to bring before such a 
 committee." 
 
 J. W. was all for prompt action. "Why couldn't we 
 get a thing like that started right away?" he said. "It 
 might save us some time from a race riot such as so 
 many communities have had, and as we might have 
 had here the other night. At least it would help the 
 Negroes to get fair treatment, as well as to understand 
 the white folks here in Delafield." 
 
 "I'm ready to do my part," said Alexander Driver, 
 quietly. 
 
 "Could you get four or five really representative Ne 
 groes together to meet an equal number of white men, 
 and talk this thing over ?" J. W. asked him. 
 
 "I think I could," said the preacher. 
 
 "Well, I'll see my pastor about it right away and let 
 you know within a day or two," said J. W. 
 
 "I'm inclined to think that we're going to get some 
 thing started," he added, as he said good-night to Pas 
 tor Driver and drove away. 
 
 For the rest of the evening Jeannette and J. W.
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 55 
 
 gave themselves to the delights of the full-mooned au 
 tumn night. There would be many nights when J. W. 
 would be out on the road, and even to-night their al 
 most perfect happiness was touched with sobering 
 thoughts of the future. They took a wide circuit into 
 the country and swung back through the tree-shadowed 
 roads, refreshed and quiet of heart. 
 
 The next day J. W. let the store do without him while 
 he sought out his new pastor, the Rev. Conrad Schus 
 ter. To that practical and understanding brother he 
 rehearsed his talk with the colored minister. He found 
 Conrad Schuster in full accord with the suggestion of 
 an interracial committee, and before long these two 
 had made out a list of men who, they thought, would 
 be worth most for such a service. 
 
 "If we had a Federation of Churches in Delafield, we 
 might turn the entire responsibility of organization 
 over to it," said Brother Schuster. "But as it is, I guess 
 we'll just have to move forward ourselves. We must, 
 however, make this more than a Methodist movement." 
 
 And so they decided to invite six white citizens and 
 to ask Alexander Driver to invite six Negroes. They 
 fixed on Thursday evening for the first meeting. Pas 
 tor Schuster was to talk to three of the men, while 
 J. W. was to see the other three, and meanwhile to re 
 port to Alexander Driver. 
 
 In this simple fashion the plan was launched. On 
 Thursday evening, quite unsuspected by Delafield in 
 general, a meeting took place the like of which had not 
 been seen there before. Six self-possessed and quiet
 
 56 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 Negroes sat down with an equal number of thought 
 ful white men to talk frankly and fairly about the re 
 lations between the white and the black races in Dela- 
 field. 
 
 J. W. was made temporary chairman of the meeting, 
 and he briefly explained its occasion and purpose. He 
 was no orator, but he was not afraid of hearing his 
 own voice. 
 
 "During the last few days," said he, "we have had 
 our attention sharply called to a condition which ex 
 ists in Delafield. We cannot close our eyes to it 
 just because the trouble is over for the moment. A 
 few of the roughest men in town were on the point of 
 bringing lasting disgrace upon Delafield. That inci 
 dent was merely a symptom of the friction which ex 
 ists between the black and the white races here, and for 
 which there must be a cause, perhaps many causes. 
 
 "We are met here to-night quite informally. We 
 have no authority. But together we have a certain 
 amount of influence. And, if we act wisely, I believe 
 that the dozen of us here to-night can accomplish al 
 most anything in Delafield that we can agree is desir 
 able. I am told that other communities, particularly 
 in the South, where there are many Negroes, have or 
 ganized what are known as 'Interracial Councils,' and 
 that they have proved to be very useful in creating a 
 mutual understanding and respect between the white 
 man and the Negro. I am inclined to think that we 
 ought to organize such a council, but first I believe we 
 ought to look at the facts. I would suggest that to-
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 57 
 
 night we try to discover some of the things that are 
 wrong, and what can be done to right them." 
 
 There was a general murmur of assent, so J. W. 
 went on : "If there is no objection, we will proceed on 
 that basis. We have men here who understand and 
 who can tell us the facts. I think they may be counted 
 on to speak frankly. If we learn the facts, we may be 
 able to find a solution for the difficulties and avoid 
 their repetition. With your permission, I will call upon 
 the Rev. Alexander Driver, pastor of Saint Mark's 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, to speak first." 
 
 The Rev. Alexander Driver arose. He was of the 
 new generation of Negroes; his bearing was manly, 
 his education plainly adequate, and his speech direct. 
 
 "Friends," said he, "the very fact that you are here 
 to-night gives me courage to call you 'friends.' This 
 is a new experience for me. Never before have I had 
 a chance to meet a group like this, made up of mem 
 bers of both the white and black races, met together 
 to discuss questions that affect the two races alike. 
 As a pastor I have opportunities to see much and hear 
 much. I could tell you many things, but I will confine 
 myself to three topics. They are realities among my 
 people. Of course I do not speak in a spirit of com 
 plaint, but to bring before you some of the causes of 
 irritation and friction as they appear among the Ne 
 groes of Delafield. 
 
 "In the first place, let me mention housing condi 
 tions. Possibly you do not altogether realize what a 
 difficult time it has been to find places where our peo-
 
 58 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 pie might live. We can not go anywhere in town and 
 rent places, as white people can. People will not rent 
 or sell to us. That fact confines us to our particular 
 section, as you know. This would not be so bad, if 
 there were enough decent places for our people in 
 what you know as the Black Belt. But it's not so. 
 Agents charge enormous rentals for places with no im 
 provements; places which they refuse to keep in a 
 respectable state of repair. Two or more families are 
 often forced to live where only one should be. Over 
 crowding, lack of sanitation, and other bad conditions 
 are allowed to exist. The sanitary and other similar 
 regulations which the city insists on enforcing strictly 
 in other parts of town are a dead letter in our section. 
 And yet an epidemic started in our section by that 
 neglect might easily spread over all of Delafield. We 
 need relief, both through the extension of housing fa 
 cilities and through the enforcement of existing sani 
 tary and housing regulations. 
 
 "In the next place we need a different attitude on 
 the part of our white neighbors. We do not wish to 
 push in where we are not wanted, but our people must 
 live somewhere. In several cases the houses into which 
 Negroes have moved have been burned or bombed, but 
 no one has ever been brought to justice for these of 
 fenses. 
 
 "In the factories too our people are having an in 
 creasingly difficult time. During the Great War black 
 labor was eagerly welcomed, and many Negroes re 
 sponded to the call for men. Now, very often, skilled
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 59 
 
 workmen who have made a place for themselves are 
 forced out of their positions by the attitude of the 
 white workmen. This is not only an injustice to the 
 individual and his family, but also it sows the seed of 
 further irritation. 
 
 "We have thought sometimes that, if leading white 
 men such as are in this room to-night, would use their 
 influence with the employers of labor and with the 
 labor leaders here in Delafield, much of this unfair 
 treatment could be stopped, and colored workmen might 
 hope to keep some of the positions which they have 
 worked so hard to reach, and for which they are quali 
 fied in every particular except the color of their skins. 
 
 "I will speak of only one other matter, and that is 
 the question of unlawful resorts in our part of town. 
 These places are owned and sponsored by white people, 
 but they are patronized by colored folk who do not 
 find their homes any too attractive and who easily fall 
 into the snares set for them. We have tried to have 
 the responsible officials close up these places, but our 
 influence does not seem to count for much. Of course 
 we realize that to shut up such places is only a negative 
 measure. We need opportunities of wholesome recrea 
 tion for our people. To some extent we are actually 
 trying to do this, through the church. But we need a 
 far more adequate staff and program if we are to do 
 the work which ought to be done. The net result is 
 that our race is given a bad name because unlawful 
 conditions have been created, for profit, in our part 
 of town. We are unable to have the evil stopped, or to
 
 60 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 do what we would like to do, and what ought to be 
 done, in supplying a constructive program to take the 
 place of these hangouts. 
 
 "I would like to say many other things, but there are 
 others to be heard, and I must stop." 
 
 In turn the other colored men were called upon to 
 speak. They were not in a complaining mood ; the oc 
 casion was against that. But they evidently welcomed 
 the opportunity to speak out. The superintendent of 
 the school in the colored section of the town told of 
 the overcrowded schoolrooms, the lack of equipment, 
 and the difficulty of getting necessary support at the 
 hands of the school board. Another man told of fric 
 tion which had arisen from time to time on the street 
 cars when conductors had been disagreeable to their 
 colored passengers, and quick resentment had led to 
 angry altercations. Other men spoke of other points 
 of possible danger, or at least of probable misunder 
 standing. 
 
 When the colored men had all spoken, J. W. called 
 upon the white men to speak. Each speaker followed 
 his own bent, but a prominent Christian business man 
 summed the matter up well when he said : "This eve 
 ning has been a revelation to me. I hadn't realized that 
 we had so many unsatisfactory situations here in Dela- 
 field, and I confess, I didn't know the Negroes of our 
 town had such intelligent leaders and spokesmen." 
 
 Then he paused ; his mind was busy with the varying 
 aspects of the whole case. 
 
 "Some of the situations which have been described
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 61 
 
 here," he conceded, "cannot be changed quickly; they 
 are too deep-seated for that. It will take patience and 
 education to do anything with them. But some of the 
 others, I believe, can be changed as soon as we make 
 up our minds that it is time to act. Our Chamber of 
 Commerce has enough influence at the city hall to see 
 that unlawful resorts are closed up. We can even make 
 sure that housing regulations are enforced, and that 
 unsanitary conditions are done away. I am a mem 
 ber of the Chamber, and I will be responsible for 
 seeing that these matters are reported to it." 
 
 He smiled a bit as he remembered another of his 
 business relationships. "And, by the way, I am also a 
 stockholder in our street railway company. If we have 
 conductors who are treating colored passengers un 
 civilly, it is very much my business to see that it is 
 stopped. It is bad for dividends. I believe, in spite of 
 what we have heard, that colored people and white 
 people can learn to live together in the same city, each 
 enjoying the full privileges of citizenship without limit 
 ing the rights of the other. I can see though that we 
 have a great deal to do before matters will be set right; 
 it will take years of effort and education on the part 
 of both races." 
 
 Another man, a member of the School Board, made 
 the evening's last definite suggestion. "We have stayed 
 here a long time to-night," he said, "and it has been 
 immensely worth while. I believe we ought to meet 
 here again next week, possibly with a little larger repre 
 sentation of both races, when we can set up a perma-
 
 62 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 nent organization, to act as an interracial clearing 
 house. Of course we must watch out that this com 
 mittee does not become a political organization for the 
 purpose of controlling the Negro vote. With proper 
 guarding, however, I believe we can make it a power 
 for good in Delafield." 
 
 The meeting was adjourned with the understanding 
 that a second meeting would be held a week later. As 
 J. W. walked home with Pastor Schuster he asked him, 
 "Well, do you think we accomplished anything to 
 night?" 
 
 "Yes," said the minister, "probably more than you 
 imagine. It was really good work to bring representa 
 tives of the two races together, even if we did nothing 
 but talk. A good many of the world's troubles arise 
 because people do not understand each other. Some 
 times a little talk may go a long way toward smoothing 
 over difficulties." 
 
 "Yes," said J. W., "but if we want results in Dela 
 field, we must do more than talk things over." 
 
 "Surely," said his pastor. "But it has to begin in 
 talk. I don't think all this is going to end in talk. I 
 believe we are going to get at some definite things 
 which need to be done here. Is it a fact that you are 
 to be away much of the time this year? You have done 
 well to get this work started ; and I give you my word 
 I will do my best to keep it going until we have some of 
 the results you hope for." 
 
 "I am glad to hear you say that," said J. W., "espe 
 cially because it is a fact that I must be on the road a
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 63 
 
 good deal. But don't give me the credit for what 
 happened to-night. It is directly the result of your 
 sermon last Sunday. If it hadn't been for that I should 
 not have been so much interested as I am now." 
 
 And then the next evening J. W. dropped in on his 
 former pastor, the Rev. Walter Drury. That gentle 
 man had recovered sufficient strength so that he was 
 fairly comfortable, and could do many things for him 
 self. Of course everybody knew that his days in the 
 active ministry were over. 
 
 It had been some time since he had had an uninter 
 rupted talk with J. W., and he welcomed him with un 
 veiled pleasure. 
 
 J. W. was in many ways the delight of Walter 
 Drury's days of enforced inactivity, for J. W. was in 
 more than one respect a symbol of what he had tried 
 to do for all his people during the years of his ministry. 
 It had happened that he had been able to do more with 
 J. W. than with any other one individual. 
 
 Once comfortably seated in the familiar study, Pas 
 tor Drury and J. W. talked on and on. They discussed 
 freely the process and methods by which J. W. had 
 gained his Christian outlook, how he had been led into 
 varied experiences which had shown him the vastness, 
 the infinite variety, and the importance of the work of 
 the church. 
 
 They talked also of the future, and what it might 
 hold in store for the young layman. Inevitably they 
 talked of the present, of the new home, of Jeannette, 
 of the new pastor, of the sermon of the previous Sun-
 
 64 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 day, and of the events which had led up to it and fol 
 lowed it. 
 
 "In my judgment," said Walter Drury, "we have 
 before us here in Delafield, in concrete form, one of the 
 mightiest problems which the world faces to-day. Can 
 people of different races live side by side, amicably, 
 under the social systems and ideals of the present? 
 The answer to that question may determine whether 
 our existing civilization can survive, or whether it is 
 doomed to collapse. 
 
 "And yet, curiously enough, the solution of the diffi 
 culty is a very simple one. Christian education and the 
 practical application of Christian principles to our hu 
 man relationships would quickly abolish the entire diffi 
 culty. The thing which is going to hold civilization to 
 gether, in the final test, is not complexion but ideals, 
 and the only ideals which are big enough to dominate 
 the world's forces are those of Jesus Christ." 
 
 Walter Drury's face glowed as he warmed to this, 
 his favorite subject. "It is one of the glories of Chris 
 tian missions," said he, "that at their best they under 
 take to establish the ideals of Jesus among all races of 
 men, both here and abroad. You have had a chance to 
 see something of the immensity of the task, but its sig 
 nificance will grow upon you as the years pass." 
 
 "I have seen enough already to know that the church 
 has a very big and a very important task to perform," 
 said J. W. "It's going to require the consecration and 
 cooperation of all of us, if the job is ever done." 
 
 "By the way," remarked Walter Drury, as J. W. was
 
 GETTING ACQUAINTED 65 
 
 about to leave, "you were telling me that your next trip 
 will take you into the South. It might be a good thing 
 for you to see what the church is doing for the Amer 
 ican Negro down there, and also to see what the Negro 
 is doing for the church. The South and Delafield can't 
 think of facing this business in ignorance of one an 
 other. Suppose I give you the names of several per 
 sons who could help you to see some things which you 
 could not otherwise see, and to learn something of the 
 Negro situation from the Negro himself?" 
 
 "That would suit me all right," acquiesced J. W. 
 "I don't know how much chance I shall have to look 
 around, but anything that has to do with rural life I 
 am interested in. You know I am out to sell tools and 
 agricultural implements, and I have found out already 
 that you can't know too much about the country and 
 the people when you are in a job of that sort." 
 
 "I'll send you the names anyway," said Walter Drury 
 smiling. "I'll trust you to do the rest. I've watched 
 you quite a while now, and you haven't failed me yet."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 
 
 IT was time for J. W. to get ready for the first trip 
 since his homecoming and his marriage. There must 
 be a few days at Saint Louis, getting familiar with 
 the business changes which had taken place during his 
 long absence. He needed to learn something about the 
 goods, and something more about the customers he 
 was expected to serve. 
 
 The leave-taking was not the success it had been ad 
 vertised to be. In spite of her firm resolution to be 
 brave, and even gay, Jeannette found her eyes be 
 traying her, and J. W. had no courage to boast of. 
 He stood on the back platform until first Jeannette and 
 then Delafield faded from view. Then he went inside 
 and began to take account of business stock. He had 
 been gone so long in the Orient that all sorts of ques 
 tions arose in his mind as to his chances of making good 
 in the South. But at heart he was not really afraid of 
 the outcome. 
 
 Reaching Saint Louis, he put in a hard week between 
 office and warehouse, finding as he worked that the first 
 zest of his cub salesman days came back in a flood. 
 Every night he wrote to Jeannette, and Jeannette also 
 managed to write a letter a day. 
 
 66
 
 TWO RURAL NEGRO SCHOOLS 
 A modern Rosen wald school and one of the poorer sort.
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 67 
 
 By the end of the week J. W., though he did not 
 know quite all that might be known about the business 
 and the goods of the Cummings Hardware Company, 
 was fairly sure that he had about all the information 
 that he could use on one trip. And so he set out. 
 
 The plan was that he should go east to Virginia, for 
 his firm was pretty well established even so far away 
 from home, and then work back toward Saint Louis. 
 En route he was to be alert for new needs and new de 
 mands, as well as for new ideas about agricultural im 
 plements in general. 
 
 He managed to find both business and ideas, but 
 nothing befell which would be of special interest to 
 this chronicle until he had passed through Virginia, and 
 had traversed North Carolina. In South Carolina he 
 found the cotton-picking still on, and he got a new 
 sense of the immensity of the crop. He had never be 
 fore seen so much cotton. He could hardly have be 
 lieved that there was so much cotton in the world. 
 
 Not only did he ride through mile after mile of 
 cotton fields, with their thousands of black men, 
 women, and children busy at the picking, but it seemed 
 as though every cabin had its store of freshly-baled or 
 freshly-picked cotton. In the roads he saw long lines 
 of wagons carrying yet more cotton to the gins, and 
 other wagons hauling the baled cotton away after its 
 ordeal in the teeth of the gin. At every station there 
 was more cotton; it was the one conspicuous com 
 modity. Here a score of bales, there a hundred, and 
 sometimes many hundreds of bales under a single roof.
 
 68 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 As he looked out, hour after hour and day after day, 
 on the endless acres of white, he had the feeling that, 
 whatever other calamities might come, the world would 
 never again lack for cotton. 
 
 Because he was a born salesman, he was a busy one. 
 What between his regular work and his interest in the 
 unusual aspects of the country, he had not found much 
 time to think about his last talk with Walter Drury 
 before leaving Delafield. But one night in taking out 
 his pocket notebook he dropped from it a folded slip, 
 which, when he opened it, proved to be the list of names 
 his old pastor had sent to him. He had not taken the 
 time to examine it before. Now he looked it over with 
 fresh interest. It held the names of seven or eight 
 ministers and district superintendents, and one bishop. 
 At the bottom of the paper a penciled note said, "These 
 men are all Negroes, and leaders in the church. They 
 are worth knowing, and they will be glad to meet you 
 and talk with you." 
 
 And, as coincidence would have it, one of the men 
 listed as a district superintendent was noted as living 
 in the very town in which J. W. chanced to be stopping. 
 
 This was his first opportunity to show that he ap 
 preciated Walter Drury's suggestions. He could at 
 least call on this official, so that he could report that 
 fact to Pastor Drury. 
 
 It must be admitted that J. W. was not unduly en 
 thusiastic about the prospect, though he was willing to 
 try. You see, he had never called upon a Negro before 
 except as he had occasion to visit Alexander Driver
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 69 
 
 once or twice on matters of business, and he wasn't 
 quite sure under what condition the rules of etiquette 
 made provision for a white man to make such a call. 
 The very uncertainty made him a trifle self-conscious. 
 He hesitated to make inquiry at the hotel desk for 
 guidance to the address he sought. Instead he quietly 
 approached one of the bell boys, a colored boy, of 
 course, and was soon put in possession of the desired 
 information. Sauntering out into the night, within ten 
 minutes he stood before a modest house on the outskirts 
 of town. At first he thought there was no one at home, 
 but a gentle rap on the door brought a response, and a 
 fairly tall Negro of middle age stood before him. 
 
 "Are you the district superintendent of this region?" 
 J. W. asked. 
 
 "I am," said the colored man. "Can I be of service 
 to you?" 
 
 "My name," said J. W., "is John Wesley Farwell. I 
 am a Methodist layman, and a traveling man. It hap 
 pens that I am very much interested in the work which 
 the church is doing in this part of the country, and be 
 fore I left home on this trip a friend gave me your name 
 and address, and suggested that I call on you and hear 
 from you something about your work." 
 
 "You are very welcome," said the district superin 
 tendent. "Step right inside, won't you, please? It is 
 seldom that I get a chance to talk to laymen like your 
 self who are sincerely interested in what we are doing, 
 or trying to do, and I certainly appreciate this oppor 
 tunity.
 
 70 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "Won't you rest your hat?" he added. "And please 
 step right into this room. I will bring another light." 
 
 J. W. wasn't quite sure what he had expected to find, 
 but he felt a touch of surprise as he entered a com 
 fortable sitting room, its rugs, chairs, pictures, books, a 
 few periodicals, an organ, and other home accessories, 
 proclaiming its quality. 
 
 "If you will ask me questions," said the district 
 superintendent when they both were seated, "it will 
 help me to give you the kind of information you want." 
 
 "I don't know enough to ask questions, yet," said 
 J. W. "But if you will, it would help me to have you 
 begin by telling me about yourself." 
 
 "That's a subject that I don't like to talk much 
 about," replied the district superintendent, "but if it 
 will give you a start I'll go ahead. 
 
 "I was born in this State and have lived here most 
 of my life. My father was born and brought up a 
 slave, but he bought his freedom, so that he was a free 
 man before the Civil War. He went into business for 
 himself and prospered well, at least enough that he 
 was able to educate all of us children. I had five broth 
 ers and sisters who lived to grow up, and every member 
 of the family, with one exception, became a school 
 teacher." 
 
 "Your father must have been something of a be 
 liever in education," suggested J. W. 
 
 "He surely was," said the minister. "I began going 
 to school when I was seven years old, and by the time 
 I was twelve I was teaching night school in Charleston.
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 71 
 
 At sixteen I graduated from a private school in the 
 city of Charleston. Right after that I taught two 
 years, and then I entered Claflin University at Orange- 
 burg, South Carolina, one of the schools conducted by 
 the Freedmen's Aid Society of the Methodist Episco 
 pal Church. After that I went to Howard University 
 in Washington, D. C, though I received my A.B. from 
 an important school in this State. Later I received the 
 degree of A. M. from Syracuse University and the 
 degree of D.D. from Wilberforce University." 
 
 "Did you go into the ministry then?" asked J. W. 
 "You certainly had better preparation for it than most 
 of the young ministers I've known." 
 
 "Well, no," responded the other. "For a time after 
 getting my A.B. I taught school. Later I joined the 
 Conference and preached and taught at the same time. 
 I usually had charge of the public school in the same 
 place where I preached. Now for almost six years 
 I have been in this district as superintendent. I guess 
 that's about-tny whole story." 
 
 "And you said you didn't like to talk about it!" 
 ejaculated J. W. "Do you mean to tell me that all of 
 the district superintendents in this Conference have 
 had as good an education as you have?" 
 
 "I am afraid not," said the district superintendent, 
 "but I wouldn't like to make comparisons at that point. 
 You see, my father was in a position to give us special 
 advantages which others did not enjoy, especially at 
 that time. And he had the ambition as well as the 
 money."
 
 72 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "Have you any family of your own?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I have several children," answered the 
 district superintendent, smiling. "One son graduated 
 from the Agricultural Department of the University of 
 Wisconsin, and another is now studying medicine in 
 the University of Michigan. Then I have a daughter 
 who is teaching. My other children are still in school. 
 The two older boys were in the army. One reached 
 the rank of captain, and the other, who served in 
 France, got his second lieutenant's commission over 
 there." 
 
 "I am not sure of the count," said J. W., "but I make 
 it at five; is that right?" 
 
 "Six," said the minister with another smile. "I 
 have an old-fashioned family, you'll think." 
 
 "It's an interesting one, anyway," said J. W. "And 
 now, what about your work ? Is it about the same as 
 it would be anywhere in the church?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, some of it. This is distinctly a rural dis 
 trict. It has forty-six points, and forty are out in the 
 open country. We have twenty men on the district 
 a man for every charge, though some of the men serve 
 two and three points. But one of our difficulties is that 
 the men haven't the education they should have, by a 
 long way." 
 
 "Their training how far does it go ?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Well, one man is college trained, several have the 
 equivalent of a high-school education ; but some haven't 
 had much schooling of any sort. 
 
 "By the way," continued the district superintendent,
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 73 
 
 "I have to make quite a drive into the country to 
 morrow to see what some of the pastors are doing on 
 their Centenary offerings. Would you care to go 
 along, and see some of this work for yourself?" 
 
 Now J. W. had been glad to see and talk with this 
 Negro leader, but he had not thought of carrying his 
 studies of the Negro quite as far as the minister's in 
 vitation suggested. But he had been given a fairly free 
 hand as to the use of his spare time, and, besides, he 
 might find out something that would have a distinct 
 business value. So he said, "I should consider it a 
 great privilege to go." , 
 
 It was arranged that J. W. should come over from 
 his hotel early the next morning, and start from the 
 minister's house. 
 
 They set out at eight, in a car which would have been 
 identified as quickly in Denmark or Demerara as in 
 Detroit, J. W. and the district superintendent in the 
 back seat and a colored boy at the wheel. 
 
 Somewhat to J. W.'s surprise, instead of heading for 
 the country, the car turned toward town. 
 
 Said his escort, "Before we get away into my 'work,' 
 I would like you to meet some of the Southern white 
 men who are doing a good deal to help us. We are 
 building a fine brick building for our Negro children. 
 It is to be a creditable public school, and I want you to 
 shake hands with the man who has been most active in 
 planning it and getting it under way." 
 
 They had stopped in front of a handsome house, and 
 a tall man of forty-five or so answered the bell. The
 
 74 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 district superintendent said, "Mr. Harlan, I have with 
 me a Methodist layman from the North. He is going 
 out into the country to look at some of our churches, 
 and I was anxious that he should meet you, because, 
 as I have told him, you are doing so much for our 
 people." 
 
 "I understand," volunteered J. W., "that you have 
 been active in the project for a new school building to 
 serve the colored children of your town." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Harlan, "we are trying to give 
 them as good as there is. And I think you would enjoy 
 taking a look at the building. It is not so wonderful, 
 compared with some you have seen, but it is so much 
 better than the building it displaces that we are inclined 
 to be sort of proud of it." 
 
 "We aim to pass by it as we go through town," said 
 the district superintendent, "and now we must be mov 
 ing along, for it is a long ride we have ahead of us." 
 
 "I am right glad you stopped by," said Mr. Harlan 
 to J. W., as they parted. "It is time there was more 
 visiting back and forth between the North and the 
 South. I do some of it myself when I go North, but a 
 visit like this of yours is not as common as it ought 
 to be." 
 
 J. W. answered him cordially, "It has been a real 
 pleasure to meet you," said he. "You have given me 
 something to tell about when I get back home." 
 
 "And now," said the district superintendent, "I am 
 going to take you to call on our mayor. He's another 
 friend of our work."
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 75 
 
 At his place of business they found his Honor, who 
 received them as cordially as if they represented a block 
 of influential votes. 
 
 "I have been hearing," said J. W., "about the good 
 relations that exist between the white and the colored 
 citizens of your town, and I want to ask you how you 
 keep the general opinion on both sides so cordial." 
 
 "That's not so very hard," answered the mayor. 
 "We think we have as fine a population of colored 
 people as can be found in the State, and the people 
 who elected me expect me to see that nothing is done to 
 stir up any trouble on either side." 
 
 Once more in the car, and on the way to the new 
 school building, J. W. commented on the mayor's af 
 fability. "I suppose he finds it good politics to praise 
 the Negroes of the town; it probably helps him to hold 
 the Negro vote." 
 
 "No," the district superintendent laughed somewhat 
 grimly. "The politicians in these parts don't have to 
 worry about the Negro vote. The Negro doesn't vote. 
 But the mayor is perfectly sincere in his talk about our 
 people. He has done many things for us, and there is 
 no one that I would go to quicker in time of trouble 
 than to him. As a matter of fact, racial conditions are 
 unusually good in this town. I've lived in many differ 
 ent places in the State, and I've suffered many things 
 too, but I think we have the best white people in this 
 town that I have ever known." 
 
 By this time they had reached the new school build 
 ing. It was only well started, yet one could see what
 
 ;6 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 it would become. As they drove on past they talked 
 about it. 
 
 "Is it to be a high school?" said J. W. 
 
 "Oh, no," said the district superintendent. "There 
 is no such thing possible here as a high school for Ne 
 groes. But this is going to be one of the best grade- 
 school buildings for colored children in the State. It 
 will have well-equipped playgrounds and other modern 
 features." 
 
 "You say high schools are not provided," said J. W. 
 "Then how much school opportunity exists for col 
 ored children over your district?" 
 
 "In the country," said the district superintendent, 
 "for the most part, the children have some sort of a 
 school open for some period of the year. In many 
 cases, however, the term is so short, the building is so 
 poor and so destitute of equipment, and the preparation 
 of the teachers so entirely inadequate, that the school 
 amounts practically to no school at all. Some of the 
 teachers couldn't qualify for the fifth grade them 
 selves." 
 
 "Some of your church members can't be so very well 
 educated, then," said J. W. 
 
 "I should say not. Probably at least a third of them 
 can't read or write." 
 
 By this time the car was out in the open country, 
 passing along narrow dirt roads flanked on either side 
 with cotton fields and corn fields. Frequent rough 
 board, unpainted cabins stood by the roadside. Oc 
 casionally the party stopped to talk for a moment with
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 77 
 
 passing Negroes or with those who were picking cot 
 ton or "pulling" corn near the road. Pulling corn 
 consists not in pulling the cornstalks themselves, but 
 rather in gathering the ears of corn which, earlier in 
 the season, have been broken down and left hanging to 
 the stalks. 
 
 By and by they came to a small, unpainted building 
 which looked so different from the other cabins that 
 J. W. was moved to ask what it might be. 
 
 "That ?" said the district superintendent. "That's a 
 schoolhouse for colored children." 
 
 "A schoolhouse !" said J. W. "That may be a school- 
 house, but if so, it certainly is the crudest one I ever 
 saw. Does that fairly represent schoolhouses you have 
 down here?" 
 
 "Well, we have altogether too many of that kind, 
 but some are very much better than that, as you will see 
 before the day is over," replied the district superin 
 tendent. 
 
 The car stopped, and J. W. got out and tried the door 
 of the building. It was unlocked, and he stepped in 
 side. He found a few rough and much-dilapidated 
 benches, one chair, and a table about ready to topple 
 over. That was all. 
 
 "It can't be that they really have school here," said 
 J. W. "It's a school day to-day, but no one is here. 
 Besides, the place hasn't room for more than fifteen or 
 twenty pupils if they came." 
 
 "They have school here, all right," said the district 
 superintendent; "that is, if you want to call it a school.
 
 78 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 Probably your schools at home have been open for two 
 months already, but you see we are still picking cotton 
 down here, and school doesn't usually begin until the 
 cotton-picking season is nearly over. Then it lasts for 
 about four or five months. Sometimes the parents raise 
 a little more money, and keep the teacher another 
 month. There'll be fifty or sixty children of all grades 
 here in this room a little later in the season. It's quite 
 a job too for one teacher to handle such a school and 
 get much real work done." 
 
 By this time they had climbed back into the car and 
 were driving along the dusty road. Soon the district 
 superintendent asked the driver to stop. 
 
 "I want you to meet this man here in the field," he 
 said to J. W., "he is one of our pastors." 
 
 J. W. climbed through the wire fence and walked 
 toward a small group of workers; a man, a woman, 
 and two children. 
 
 "This is Brother Jones," said the district superin 
 tendent. "He has charge of our circuit here of three 
 churches." 
 
 J. W. greeted the workers, who had been engaged in 
 digging sweet potatoes. By rapid-fire questions he 
 drew out a considerable amount of information con 
 cerning the number of bushels of potatoes Brother 
 Jones expected to harvest, the three bales of cotton he 
 had raised, his corn crop, the two pigs which he had 
 ready to kill, what family he had, and what about his 
 three churches. 
 
 When J. W. was back in the car once more he turned
 
 79 
 
 to the district superintendent and said, "That man 
 seems to be a pretty good farmer, but I don't see when 
 he gets time to prepare his sermons." 
 
 "I'm afraid he doesn't spend much time on sermon 
 preparation," said the district superintendent. 
 
 "Do all of your men do something else besides 
 preach?" said J. W. 
 
 "Oh, no," the other replied, "we have men getting 
 as much as seventeen hundred dollars a year, and they 
 give all of their time to their church work. Of course 
 this man gets only a few hundred dollars from his 
 churches. His people are poor, and he has never been 
 trained for his work." 
 
 "I suppose a district as poor as this isn't able to give 
 much toward the Centenary funds?" said J. W. 
 
 "Well," said the district superintendent, "we have 
 given sixteen thousand dollars already, and we expect 
 to give nine thousand more this year. It's going to be 
 pretty hard to do it, for they couldn't sell their cotton 
 last year, and this year the boll weevil has damaged 
 the crop considerably." . 
 
 "What's this ?" interrupted J. W., as the car stopped 
 in front of an attractive building, plainly not a home, 
 and yet wholly unlike the school he had inspected a few 
 miles back. He was perplexed to know what it might 
 be. 
 
 "This is another type of rural school," said the dis 
 trict superintendent. "We call it a Rosenwald school. 
 I have six or seven of these on my district. You see a 
 Mr. Rosenwald in Chicago gives a certain amount of
 
 80 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 money, if the county and the people in the school dis 
 trict will raise a certain amount, and then they build 
 one of these school buildings. This school you'll find 
 is already in session. Would you like to go in ?" 
 
 Of course J. W. wanted to see the inside of this 
 modest but attractive building, with its many clean 
 windows. Inside they found four teachers in as many 
 different rooms busily engaged instructing classes of 
 various ages. The desks and the other school equip 
 ment were of the most modern sort, the floors were 
 clean, and the light was abundant. The principal ex 
 plained that the pupils were now coming in rapidly, and 
 that the building would soon be rilled to capacity. The 
 contrast between this school and the one J. W. had seen 
 an hour before was so great that he could hardly believe 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Is this man Rosenwald a Negro?" he asked the 
 principal. 
 
 "No," laughed the teacher. "His name tells you 
 what race he belongs to; but he certainly has done a 
 lot for the Negro. You'll find schools like this all 
 over the South from Carolina to Texas." 
 
 As J. W. came out of the schoolhouse he saw an 
 other building some rods away, which he had not noted 
 before. It was a plain box structure which had once 
 been painted white. 
 
 "That," said the district superintendent, "is our 
 church." 
 
 "Has it just one room?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Yes," said the district superintendent, "just one
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 81 
 
 room. About the only thing that it is adapted for at 
 all is preaching. Of course we have a Sunday school 
 too. We might use the schoolhouse for Sunday- 
 school purposes. It would be much better than this, 
 but the people haven't gotten used to that idea yet." 
 
 "Are all of your churches of this type?" J. W. asked. 
 
 "Practically all of them in the country," the district 
 superintendent answered ; "just four walls and a roof." 
 
 "Do you know what I think?" said J. W. "I think 
 that this is one of the most remarkable rural oppor 
 tunities that a pastor could find anywhere in the United 
 States. With all those children there must be a lot of 
 people around here somewhere. A trained pastor with 
 a modern community program for this church could 
 remake this entire countryside. Of course he ought 
 to have a new church, adapted to his work, but for the 
 present at least he could use the schoolhouse." 
 
 "The opportunity is here all right," said the district 
 superintendent, "and so are the people. Most of them 
 are Methodists too. If you'll just send us the trained 
 man, we'll agree to do the rest. That's all we need, but 
 it seems to be a plenty." 
 
 J. W. had many experiences during the crowded day. 
 They drove fast while they drove, but they stopped 
 often. They saw more than twenty churches and 
 almost an equal number of schoolhouses, and they 
 called upon several pastors. Once they stopped at a 
 little cotton gin which, J. W. was told, was owned and 
 operated by Negroes. Here he saw the wagons drive 
 up, loaded with freshly-picked cotton, and he watched
 
 82 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 the cotton disappear as if by magic, when the drivers 
 pulled down the large suction pipes which were used 
 for the unloading. From the moment the cotton leaped 
 out of the wagon to meet these pipes it kept on the move 
 until it had passed into the great hoppers, and then 
 down beneath the little saw-teeth which tore the cotton 
 from the seeds and passed it on to the carriers, and 
 there turned it out in great white billows ready for 
 the baler. It was all new to J. W. and he watched the 
 process with vast interest. 
 
 At noontime they paused at a little country store 
 and purchased boxes of crackers and cakes and some 
 canned sausage. At nightfall they were still forty-five 
 miles from home. Once on the way back they became 
 lost, and had to get a man to go with them and show 
 them the way. At another time they found the nar 
 row road blocked by a truck which had become stuck 
 in the sand. But about eleven o'clock that evening the 
 faithful car pulled up in front of J. W.'s hotel. 
 
 "I can't tell you how much this day has meant to 
 me," said J. W. as he bade the district superintendent 
 good-by. "I shall remember it as long as I live." 
 
 He was tired and hungry and covered with dust and 
 dirt, but these matters were of little moment. He knew 
 that he had spent an eventful day, and that he would 
 always understand some things better because of it. 
 
 Followed a busy two weeks, in which he gave him 
 self vigorously to the practice of his developing sales 
 manship. He found himself one day down in Ala 
 bama. Here he had another experience such as he
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 83 
 
 loved to treasure up until the time when he could tell 
 it to Pastor Drury. That prospect gave a double in 
 terest to J. W.'s every new "adventure in humanity," 
 as Walter Drury once put it. 
 
 J. W. was walking back and forth on the station 
 platform one morning as he waited for his train, when 
 he noticed, in front of the waiting room set apart for 
 colored people, an intelligent-looking and well-dressed 
 Negro. There was something about the man which 
 attracted J. W.'s attention, and after a few more turns 
 along the platform he paused and said, "Pardon me, but 
 are you acquainted with this country?" 
 
 "I should know it fairly well," said the other. "I was 
 born and grew up not far from here." 
 
 "How do you find things among the colored people 
 here?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Well, they're having a pretty hard time, just now. 
 You see last year cotton was so cheap that you could 
 hardly give it away, and this year the boll weevil hit 
 this section so hard that it has nearly ruined the cotton 
 crop. I know one man who used to raise fifty bales of 
 cotton. This year he won't have two bales. Many 
 others are hit in just about the same way." 
 
 "But how can your people get along and live through 
 the winter in these conditions?" said J. W. 
 
 "Some of them are going to be up against it, I 
 guess," said the Negro. "I know one case where the 
 landlord came a few days ago and took all the cotton 
 the man had raised and then took his cow, his mule, 
 and the two pigs he was depending on to get through
 
 84 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 the winter. I just don't know how they will get along. 
 And that's no worse than a good many other cases of 
 which I know." 
 
 "The Negro doesn't own the land, then?" said J. W. 
 
 "Oh, he owns some," said the Negro, "but most of 
 it he rents, and, believe me, he doesn't always get a 
 square deal when he rents. If he raises just a little 
 cotton, the owner manages to get it all, and, if he has 
 good luck and raises a lot of cotton, the owner seems to 
 manage to get the bulk of it. We have lots of folks who 
 just work year after year for practically their board 
 and clothes; and it's pretty poor board and mighty 
 few clothes. They're in debt most of the time, for seed 
 and supplies, and it's just almost impossible for them 
 to get away. Of course some are more fortunate. They 
 work for more reasonable people or they own their 
 land. Then those who live in town and work for regu 
 lar wages get along pretty comfortably." 
 
 "Would you say that it is the ignorance of the Negro 
 which makes it easy to get ahead of him?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Yes, that's partly it," said the Negro. "But there's 
 more to it than that. There are lots of men who con 
 sider themselves perfectly honest, whose conscience 
 never troubles them when they rob a Negro. Of 
 course I don't want you to think that people here are 
 all like that, but enough of them are to cause us a lot 
 of trouble." 
 
 "Do you mind telling me what your business is?" 
 inquired J. W. "I am a stranger in these parts." 
 
 "I'm a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church,"
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 85 
 
 said his chance acquaintance. "Just now I'm acting 
 as district superintendent." 
 
 "Another district superintendent," laughed J. W. 
 "I seem to have a gift for meeting them. And yet you 
 know I half suspected it, in spite of your business suit. 
 I'm a Methodist layman myself. I'm here selling 
 goods, and trying to learn a little in other lines at the 
 same time. What is there of special interest about your 
 district?" 
 
 "I don't know that there is much to interest you," 
 said the minister. "We have forty-six churches, a 
 large proportion of which are in the open country. Our 
 total membership is a little more than forty-five hun 
 dred. We have added three hundred and seventy-five 
 new members thus far this year and we have raised a 
 little more than fifteen hundred dollars for the Cente 
 nary fund." 
 
 "Are you doing anything that might be called ad 
 vance work?" J. W. asked. 
 
 "Yes, we are building a number of new churches, 
 and the Board of Home Missions and Church Exten 
 sion is helping with two or three of these projects. We 
 have a church going up in one town which will be one 
 of the finest churches in the entire region, either for 
 whites or blacks. The people are enthusiastic and have 
 given generously. They have a young, well-trained 
 pastor, and they will be equipped for Sunday-school 
 work, and for a variety of social activities which will 
 reach the young people in a much more effective way 
 than has been possible in the past. Yesterday I was
 
 86 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 back nearly twenty miles from the railroad, where the 
 Negroes are putting up a neat modern church, and they 
 are doing it all themselves. They wrote to the Board 
 of Home Missions and Church Extension and secured 
 the plans, but they aren't asking for a cent of aid. The 
 church is going to be quite different from the old- 
 fashioned four-walled church of which we have so 
 many." 
 
 "I suppose your work keeps you fairly busy?" said 
 J. W. 
 
 "Well, I have been steadily moving now for nearly 
 fifty days, with only two days at home in that time. I 
 have held a quarterly conference or from one to three 
 other services every day. I wish you could be at some 
 of our quarterly conferences. 
 
 "Here is a program of one we held recently. It 
 lasted three days, and we invited the county agent and 
 gave him a prominent place. What do you think of 
 these subjects?" 
 
 J. W. took the program and scanned the titles : "The 
 Value of Good Roads to the Farm," "Can the Farmer 
 Raise His Own Feedstuffs and His Food?" "How 
 I Bought and Paid for My Farm," "Successful Year- 
 round Farming," "How I Raise Wheat," "Games for 
 the Young People," "The Importance of Canning and 
 Preserving Fruits and Vegetables," "The Home Gar 
 den and How to Have One," "Successful Poultry Rais 
 ing and Its Value," "The Importance of Keeping Clean, 
 Looking after Water, and Screening against Flies and 
 Mosquitoes," "Making the Church an Agency for
 
 IN THE LAND OF COTTON 87 
 
 Service to the Community," "Devotions," "Better 
 School Advantages for the Boys and Girls," "Why 
 the Boys and Girls of the County Should be Educated," 
 "How to Keep the Boys and Girls Satisfied on the 
 Farm," "Sermon." 
 
 "Well, I never saw a Quarterly Conference program 
 like that before," said J. W., with emphasis, "but that's 
 the kind of religion I believe in, a religion that's broad 
 enough to include this life as well as the next. A pro 
 gram like that ought to help to make things a good deal 
 better right here and now." 
 
 By this time the train was pulling into the station. 
 "I am glad we met," said the Negro. "I am going 
 down the line to hold a Quarterly Conference to-day. 
 I hope you have a successful trip and sell lots of 
 goods." 
 
 With that the Negro climbed into the coach for 
 colored people, and J. W. entered the part of the train 
 reserved for whites. 
 
 "That fellow certainly is a live wire," he mused. "I 
 am glad I spoke to him. He'd go a long way if his 
 skin was white. Perhaps he will, anyway." 
 
 Three weeks later a certain young woman stepped 
 onto the station platform at Delafield. Her face was 
 lighted up with anticipatory pleasure as she gazed in 
 tently down the track, although it was fully forty min 
 utes till train time. The hands of the clock moved 
 with quite unnecessary deliberation, but at last the 
 smoke of the engine could be seen as the train rounded
 
 88 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 the bend, and, hardly more than a minute later, Jean- 
 nette and her husband were walking homeward arm in 
 arm. The weeks of separation had been long, but who 
 remembers that, when "journeys end in lovers' meet 
 ings"?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 JOHN WESLEY, JR., MEETS A SURPRISE 
 
 J. W.'s brief sojourn at home was a thing to be 
 cherished, after his long trip. There was much to talk 
 over, not only with Jeannette and the folks, but also 
 with Pastor Drury and with the new pastor, Conrad 
 Schuster, for whom J. W. was developing a strong 
 liking. 
 
 Of course the talk-themes included that wonderful 
 day in South Carolina, and the brief but enlightening 
 conversation which J. W. had with the other district 
 superintendent at the railroad station in Alabama, as 
 well as many other matters which J. W. had come upon 
 by keeping his ears and eyes open as he traveled. 
 
 Every one who met him listened to his recital, both 
 because J. W. was liked for what he was, and also be 
 cause what he had to say was new to the listeners. Pas 
 tor Drury was delighted to see that J. W. was adding 
 to his grasp of the church's work in the world, and 
 Conrad Schuster was almost envious of J. W.'s oppor 
 tunities to study at first hand a situation at once so in 
 teresting and so important. 
 
 The Epworth League topic for the Sunday evening 
 after J. W.'s return was "The Church at Work in 
 America." Jeannette and J. W. were on hand, of 
 course, and J. W. was asked by the leader to tell some 
 
 89 '
 
 90 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 of the new ideas he had gained about the work of the 
 Negro churches in the South. He closed his remarks 
 by saying: "Lots of folks are continually talking about 
 the Negro as a problem, and I suppose that, in certain 
 conditions, any human being is likely to become a prob 
 lem. But I am beginning to think of the Negro not so 
 much as a national problem as a national asset. He is 
 emphatically a desirable citizen. Our country would be 
 immeasurably poorer in every way without the Negro. 
 Take the matter of cotton alone. Probably every per 
 son in this room is wearing cotton raised and picked 
 by Negroes. But that's only one product of Negro 
 labor. The Negro knows how to work, and he works 
 as uncomplainingly as most of us, but I've begun to 
 learn that he knows how to do a great many other 
 things besides raising cotton, or any other sort of 
 manual labor. Some of the Negroes I have met have 
 brains enough to do almost anything, if they had the 
 chance. I tell you I am glad our church has a place 
 for Negroes. I believe we are a stronger and better 
 church in every way because of that fact. If our Negro 
 members make as much progress in the next fifty years 
 as they have in the last fifty, they will make us white 
 Methodists hustle to keep up with them." 
 
 After the meeting was over the League members 
 held an impromptu reception for J. W. Every one was 
 delighted to see him home again, and there were many 
 expressions of interest in the things he had said. The 
 young folk of Delafield had reached the point where 
 they were eager to learn about the Negro, and especially
 
 A SURPRISE 91 
 
 from one whose good sense they trusted as much as 
 they did J. W.'s. 
 
 The following days were crowded with activities of 
 many sorts for J. W. and Jeannette. J. W. spent hours 
 at the J. W. Farwell Hardware Company's store ; the 
 two made trips to the farm for visits with Father and 
 Mother Shenk; there were other visits in the home 
 of J. W. Farwell, Sr. ; and many other engagements. 
 
 All too soon the time came for J. W. to be up and 
 away once more. This time also he was to visit the 
 South, but his schedule took in a slightly different 
 portion of it than had been covered on his previous 
 trip. 
 
 It was the first of December when J. W. found him 
 self one morning in the small city of Marshall, up in 
 the northeastern corner of Texas. A glance at his 
 pocket map showed him that he was only a few miles 
 from the western border of Louisiana, only a little far 
 ther from the southwestern corner of Arkansas, and 
 that a short ride in a northerly direction would bring 
 him into Oklahoma. 
 
 Before leaving home J. W. had taken, from a pam 
 phlet lent him by Pastor Drury, a list of the nineteen 
 schools of the Board of Education for Negroes of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. As he came down 
 through Missouri and Arkansas he had hoped to get 
 a chance to visit the George R. Smith College at Se- 
 dalia, Missouri, and the Philander Smith College at 
 Little Rock, Arkansas, but circumstances had not per 
 mitted him to carry out his wish.
 
 92 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 He had wondered, in looking over the list, if George 
 R. Smith and Philander Smith were brothers, and how 
 they happened to be so much interested in Negro edu 
 cation as to have Negro schools named after them. 
 Pastor Drury had told him, however, that the two 
 Smiths were not related, and that George R. Smith was 
 not even a Methodist. In fact, he was a Southern man 
 and he had once owned slaves, but he hated slavery, 
 and refused to fight for it. He did all he could for the 
 Negro, and after his death his daughters gave the site 
 for the college which had been established and named 
 in his honor. 
 
 Now that J. W. was in Marshall he was resolved 
 that, if he could arrange it, he would see Wiley Col 
 lege, which, as he discovered from his list, was situated 
 here. 
 
 As soon as J. W. had registered at the hotel and 
 been assigned to a room he started out to call on the 
 trade his customers. He found most of the proprietors 
 in, and in nearly every case he sold a substantial bill 
 of hardware. He enjoyed selling hardware, and, per 
 haps for that reason, people liked to buy hardware 
 of him. By noontime of the second day he had com 
 pleted all his calls, and, as he walked back to the hotel, 
 he began to think about Wiley College. This was his 
 chance. He was free until train time in the evening, 
 and there was nothing to prevent his taking advantage 
 of his opportunity. He assumed that the school must 
 be close to town, and, as he was prepared to see a small 
 affair with only one building, he expected that he could
 
 A SURPRISE 93 
 
 most likely make his visit and get back to the hotel 
 within an hour. 
 
 Right after dinner J. W. stepped outside and saun 
 tered down the street. He hadn't gone far when he 
 met a young colored man. "Can you tell me where 
 Wiley College is?" said J. W. 
 
 "I surely can," replied the young chap. "I just came 
 from there myself. Just keep right on down this street 
 and turn to the left when you go up the next rise. It's 
 just on the edge of town. It will take you ten or fifteen 
 minutes to walk out there." 
 
 "Are you a student there?" J. W. asked. 
 
 "Yes, I am in the College Department," said the 
 young man, "but I work several hours each day down 
 here in the drug store." 
 
 "Do many of the students do outside work?" in 
 quired J. W. 
 
 "A good many of the boys, but not many of the 
 girls," answered the Negro. "The people here are good 
 about giving us work. We have students in stores, in 
 banks, in barber shops, and in private homes where they 
 do the outside work around the house, and sometimes 
 the cooking too. The college won't let the girls go out 
 that way though, except in a few special cases. A few 
 work near the campus, and some do work for the col- 
 lege." 
 
 "Thank you for your information," said J. W. "I 
 am a stranger here, and I want to get a glimpse of your 
 school." 
 
 J. W. followed the instructions given as well as he
 
 94 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 could, but he began to think that it wasn't going to be 
 quite as easy to locate Wiley College as his guide had in 
 timated. He did very soon come, however, to an en 
 trance opening on a wide driveway, flanked on either 
 side by imposing brick and stone pillars mounted with 
 what appeared to be large electric globes. An auto 
 mobile was coming down the driveway. When it had 
 passed, J. W. stepped inside the gates to discover what 
 sort of a private estate or public institution he had 
 come upon. The place was admirably kept, the drives 
 were shaded, many trees were scattered about the 
 grounds, and there were numerous buildings of va 
 rious sorts. "I don't know what this place is," said 
 J. W. to himself, "but I'm going to find out." 
 
 With this observation he walked up the driveway to 
 ward what appeared to be the central building of the 
 group. It was a fine brick structure, apparently new, 
 and with its many windows J. W. thought that it 
 might serve for almost any purpose from library to 
 tuberculosis sanitarium. Just then his eye caught the 
 letters at the top W-I-L-E-Y. So this was Wiley ! 
 He had made a poor guess; but you must admit it 
 wasn't what J. W. had every reason to expect in a 
 college for Negroes. 
 
 He entered the building, and on a door at the right 
 he read, "President's Office." 
 
 "I guess this is where I had better stop and get my 
 bearings," thought J. W. as he quietly opened the door 
 and stepped inside. 
 
 Within sat a young woman, busily engaged at a
 
 A SURPRISE 95 
 
 typewriter. She turned as J. W. entered, and he in 
 quired, "Is the president in ?" 
 
 "He is out of the city to-day," said the young 
 woman, "but the dean is here. Would you like to 
 speak to him?" 
 
 Of course J. W. would be pleased to speak to the 
 dean, or to anybody else in a place like this, and so he 
 was ushered into the dean's office. At first he thought 
 the dean must be occupied elsewhere, as there was no 
 one but a young colored man in the room. "Is the dean 
 in?" asked J. W. hesitatingly. 
 
 "He is," said the young man, smiling. "What can 
 I do for you?" 
 
 "I wasn't sure that you were the dean," said J. W. 
 "I am a Methodist layman, and every year, I suppose, 
 I make a contribution to the work of our Board of 
 Education for Negroes. I understand that this is one 
 of the nineteen schools under the auspices of the Board, 
 and, as I chanced to be in town on other business, I 
 thought that I would take the opportunity of coming 
 out to get a glimpse of what you are doing." 
 
 "We certainly are delighted to have you come," said 
 the dean. "I am sorry our president is away. He will 
 be disappointed at missing a visitor from the North. 
 He is a remarkable man, and has given the best of his 
 life to the building up of this school. He is himself a 
 graduate of Rust College, in Mississippi, another one 
 of the schools under the Board of Education for Ne 
 groes. In his absence let me have the pleasure of 
 showing you through the buildings and around the
 
 96 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 grounds. We can get into some of the classes, too, if 
 you would like to see them. This building serves as our 
 main recitation hall, and you will find that we are 
 quite proud of it. We might begin in the basement, 
 and visit each floor in order. 
 
 "At present," he continued, as they went down 
 stairs, "we are conducting our classes in domestic 
 science and domestic art down here." 
 
 With this he opened a door, and J. W. stepped into 
 a large, well-lighted, steam-heated room. A group of 
 some twenty girls, their dresses protected by neat 
 aprons, were handling shining utensils, evidently en 
 gaged in the fascinating occupation of preparing some 
 thing for the oven. "Is this a part of your regular 
 work?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "Yes, for the girls," replied his guide. "You see, 
 the Woman's Home Missionary Society cooperates in 
 this, and in the work in domestic art. That society 
 supplies the teachers, and, in this case, we supply the 
 rooms. In some of the schools the classes of this sort 
 are conducted in 'Homes,' which are maintained by the 
 society. We have one such 'Home' here too. It is 
 just across from the campus. The girls there get 
 special training in the art of housekeeping and in home- 
 making." 
 
 Across the hall J. W. had a chance to see the classes 
 in millinery and dressmaking, and then from room to 
 room they went throughout the entire building. Many 
 were engaged in recitations; one class was at work in 
 an excellent chemical laboratory, and another in the
 
 A SURPRISE 97 
 
 physics laboratory ; there was a moderate-sized assem 
 bly hall fitted with stationary chairs, and everywhere 
 the rooms were neat, clean and unmarred. 
 
 As J. W. progressed his amazement grew. "This 
 certainly is a remarkable building!" he ejaculated. "I 
 haven't been long out of college, but this is a better 
 building than we had to study in when I was in school." 
 
 "Would you like to visit one of the classes?" said 
 the dean. 
 
 J. W. remembered, with a little shrinking from such 
 an ordeal, the occasional visitors who dropped into 
 classes at Cartwright. But he was honestly interested. 
 So he said, "I believe I would." 
 
 The class was studying sociology and a rather heated 
 debate was on, over the eternal question whether en 
 vironment or heredity was the more important factor 
 in influencing an individual's prospects. The teacher 
 acted as a good-natured referee, and made his con 
 tribution from time to time to the discussion. All this 
 reminded J. W. how short had been the time since his 
 own college days. The teacher handed him a textbook 
 and, to his surprise, he found that it was the identical 
 textbook he himself had used so recently. Just why 
 he should have been surprised he could not quite know. 
 Certainly, sociology is sociology, regardless of the com 
 plexion of the students. And yet, if he had not ex 
 pected something different, at least he had not ex 
 pected something quite so familiar. 
 
 Leaving the sociology class, there followed an ex 
 cursion around the grounds and a look at some of the
 
 98 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 other buildings. They saw several brick dormitories, 
 one of them so large as to call forth an exclamation of 
 surprise from J. W. 
 
 "Yes, that's a pretty large dormitory," said the dean, 
 "but it's filled, as are all the others. It's one of the 
 largest buildings around this part of the country. 
 Probably, if it was being built now, it wouldn't be 
 made quite so tall ; they spread buildings out now more 
 than they used to. We couldn't well get along without 
 that building, though." 
 
 "And what's this?" said J. W., as they passed a 
 long, low, neat building, evidently new. 
 
 "That?" said the guide. "That's our refectory. 
 "We've had it only about a year. We used to be 
 obliged to do our cooking in the basement of the dor 
 mitories, and to eat down there too. It kept the whole 
 building smelling of food all the time, and it wasn't a 
 very good place to eat, anyway. Now we feed all of 
 the students in here at one time. We have space for 
 six hundred at the tables. We have a large, well- 
 equipped kitchen, and the arrangement is very much 
 better in every way. Some of the pupils help at meal 
 time, and they pay for their board that way." 
 
 "And here's an athletic field, too, I see," said J. W., 
 "with bleachers and everything." 
 
 "Yes, we make a good deal of athletics," said the 
 dean. "The boys will soon be out here playing baseball 
 now. We have football and basketball too." 
 
 As they walked back across the campus the dean 
 pointed out a number of comfortable homes near the
 
 A SURPRISE 99 
 
 school grounds, where former graduates were living, 
 and he briefly told J. W. of some of their successes in 
 the field of business and elsewhere. 
 
 "Who lives in this house ?" said J. W. as they passed 
 a beautiful white house on the campus. 
 
 "That's the president's home," said the dean. 
 
 "And what's this?" exclaimed J. W., as they sud 
 denly came upon what was in its outer aspect the most 
 beautiful building they had yet seen. 
 
 "I've been saving this to the last on purpose," said 
 the dean. "This is our Carnegie Library. Ours is 
 one of the relatively few Negro schools to which An 
 drew Carnegie saw fit to give a library. At present we 
 are using the upper floor as a chapel. Our chapel 
 burned some time ago, and we very much need an 
 other. The upper floor of this building is the only 
 place we have that is big enough to hold all our pupils. 
 We are getting along quite well that way, as a tem 
 porary measure, but we must have a new chapel as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 When they were back once more in the dean's office 
 J. W. said : "The school is wonderful, in its way. But 
 I am even more interested in folks. I wish you would 
 tell me about yourself." 
 
 "I am afraid there isn't much of interest to tell," 
 said the dean. "I was born almost within stone's 
 throw of this campus. My father was a Methodist 
 minister, and so, of course, we moved around more or 
 less. I got most of my education right here in Mar 
 shall. I graduated from the college here a few years
 
 ioo ]. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 ago and then studied at Harvard University, specializ 
 ing in education. For two years I acted as a sort of 
 assistant to the president here, and when the dean was 
 elected president of another school, I was made dean. 
 Some people told the president that I was too young 
 for so much responsibility, but he seemed to think I 
 was the man for the job. I certainly enjoy it. This is 
 a great school, but the president and I have some ideas 
 for making it even better than it is now." 
 
 "I don't mind telling you," said J. W., "that the last 
 few hours to me have been full of surprises. I didn't 
 expect to find any such school as this down here. Are 
 the other schools of the Board of Education for Ne 
 groes anything like this?" 
 
 "Well, I have visited only a few of them," said the 
 dean. "Of course we like to think of our school as the 
 best one of the lot. Three of the schools on the Board's 
 list are professional schools, and different on that ac 
 count. Then there are several which do not give any 
 college work. Clark University at Atlanta, Georgia, is 
 supposed to be one of the leading schools. It has a 
 large campus and a wonderful new school building 
 made possible by the Centenary. Morgan College has 
 recently been moved to a beautiful new campus just 
 outside of the city of Baltimore, and I understand that 
 Bennett College in North Carolina is being practically 
 remade. Claflin College too, in South Carolina, has 
 had a wonderful development. Then there's Rust Col 
 lege at Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Samuel Huston 
 College down here at Austin, Texas. They've all done
 
 A SURPRISE 101 
 
 fine work. It's hard to make comparisons between 
 them. They say that Haven Institute at Meridian, Mis 
 sissippi, has one of the finest campuses now. They 
 got a chance to purchase the entire outfit of a white 
 girls' college at a very modest price. They have a big 
 farm, some large and beautiful buildings, and, I am 
 told, nearly forty pianos. They are making quite a 
 specialty of music, and also of their Business Depart 
 ment. They have a swimming pool, running water in 
 every dormitory room, and some other unique fea 
 tures. 
 
 "In one respect, however," the dean continued, "we 
 excel all the schools, I believe." 
 
 "What's that?" asked J. W. 
 
 "I think we have the largest College Department of 
 any of the schools. This year we have one hundred 
 and twenty-five in that department." 
 
 "How do you account for that?" said J. W. "Is it 
 because Texas is such a big State?" 
 
 "Well, Texas is a big State, all right," laughed the 
 dean, "as big as all the Atlantic States from Maine to 
 Virginia inclusive. And we get a good many students 
 from other States too. But the size of Texas doesn't 
 account for our College Department. It's partly be 
 cause we have quite a number of high schools for Ne 
 groes in this part of the country. You know in some 
 Southern States there are almost no public high schools 
 for colored pupils at all. That makes it hard for col 
 leges to do regular college work. There's no way for 
 them to get prepared pupils."
 
 102 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "What are your departments besides your College 
 Department?" asked J. W. 
 
 "In addition to our College of Arts and Sciences 
 we have a Preparatory School, a Normal School, a 
 Grammar School, a Commercial School, and a Music 
 School. We also give a special pre-medical course for 
 those who are planning to study medicine." 
 
 "It seems to me that you're doing pretty well here 
 now," said J. W., "but I suppose you have what the 
 Centenary people call 'unmet needs.' What do you 
 need most at present?" 
 
 "I'm not sure what the president would say," an 
 swered the dean, "but I would say, as I think he would 
 too, endowment. We desperately need endowment. 
 We've got a pretty good equipment, and a fine student 
 body, and this school can become a great and permanent 
 power if its future can be insured by endowment. At 
 present we live from hand to mouth, and it's a rather 
 precarious existence. 
 
 "By the way," he continued, "there is one thing I 
 forgot to mention. We now have our school year di 
 vided into four quarters, so that the school is in opera 
 tion practically the year around. Pupils are admitted 
 at the beginning of any quarter. You see the summer 
 is a pretty good time for school down here in this 
 cotton country. After the crop is 'laid by' there isn't 
 so much to do while it's growing. Then every summer 
 we have a summer school for public-school teachers 
 here. During those weeks we have two fully organized 
 schools in operation at the same time. Every spring,
 
 A SURPRISE 103 
 
 too, the Board of Home Missions and Church Exten 
 sion holds a school for colored rural pastors here. Oh, 
 we keep busy enough." 
 
 "I'm so interested in what you have been saying that 
 I could listen for a long time," said J. W., "but I must 
 be going. I have already taken up 'most all of your 
 afternoon." 
 
 "It's been a pleasure for me," said the dean. "If you 
 ever chance to be in town again, be sure to come out 
 and see us. The next time the president will probably 
 be here, and out of his long experience he can tell you 
 many things which I do not know." 
 
 The evening train which J. W. at first had intended 
 to take had left long before he returned to his hotel, 
 but that was a matter of minor concern. He would 
 lose no time thereby. It merely meant getting up early 
 the next morning. He felt, however, that his intel 
 lectual stature had increased about an inch that after 
 noon, and he could afford to get up early for a good 
 many mornings rather than to have missed the op 
 portunity which he had just enjoyed. He had some 
 thing to take home to Pastor Drury, and he imagined 
 that he had learned a few facts with which even that 
 good man, usually so well informed, was unfamiliar. 
 
 A week after his experience in Marshall, J. W.'s 
 travels brought him to Austin, the capital city of Texas. 
 By the afternoon of the second day of his stay he had 
 completed his business calls, and he took a stroll along 
 the broad avenue leading to the State Capitol building. 
 It was a beautiful day, and J. W. almost imagined that
 
 104 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 he was in Washington, as he approached the majestic 
 State building, which is patterned after the nation's 
 Capitol. 
 
 He admired the building and grounds for a time, and 
 then followed a street which turned to the right. He 
 had gone several blocks past comfortable dwellings 
 when he saw that he was approaching some sort of a 
 public or semi-public institution. Imposing brick build 
 ings, occupying three of the four corners formed by 
 two intersecting streets, presented themselves to view. 
 In front of one of them stood an automobile, and just 
 as J. W. reached the spot a well-dressed Negro came 
 out and started toward the machine. As the two men 
 met J. W. paused and said, "Pardon me, but would you 
 mind telling me what this institution is?" 
 
 "This," said the Negro, "is Samuel Huston College, 
 a school for Negroes operated by the Methodist Epis 
 copal Church." 
 
 "That's the church to which I belong," said J. W. 
 "I guess J must be one of the stockholders of the in 
 stitution." 
 
 "I am very glad to meet you," said the Negro. 
 "Possibly you would like to go through the buildings." 
 
 "That would be a pleasure, I am sure," replied J. W., 
 remembering his experience at Marshall, "but you were 
 just leaving. I must not detain you." 
 
 "Well, I was going over to the athletic field, where 
 our boys are playing baseball with a visiting team to 
 day. I expect the game has already begun, and a few 
 minutes won't make any difference."
 
 A SURPRISE 105 
 
 "That sounds interesting," said J. W. "I used to 
 play baseball myself." 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to go over to the game 
 first," proposed the other. "I would be pleased to have 
 you ride along, if you care to do so." 
 
 "Why, certainly, I'll go with you," said J. W. 
 promptly. 
 
 "Before we start let me explain to you what these 
 buildings are," continued his guide. "This first one is 
 our main college building. We call it Burrowes Hall, 
 in honor of a friend from Maine who helped the school 
 generously in the early days. The school itself, as you 
 perhaps know, was named after an Iowa farmer named 
 Samuel Huston, who helped liberally when the work 
 was in its first stages. The large brick building is our 
 dormitory, and the other brick building on the opposite 
 corner is devoted to industrial training. The building 
 across the street from us is the Eliza Dee Industrial 
 Home of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. I 
 have not seen all of the Society's Homes, but I under 
 stand that this is one of the best and most beautiful of 
 them all." 
 
 By this time J. W. and his new friend were in the 
 car, and on their way to the ball game. As they went 
 the Negro continued: "This school has had a rather 
 unusual history. For many years the colored people 
 of Texas worked to get it started, but they didn't have 
 very good luck. They got as far as the basement of 
 one building, and it stood for sixteen years exposed to 
 the weather, unused. It was only about twenty years
 
 io6 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 ago that Dr. R. S. Lovinggood came to open the school. 
 He found birds nesting in the rafters, and pigs and 
 goats sleeping in the partly completed basement. The 
 story of his work in building this school is one of the 
 romances of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the 
 South. Dr. Lovinggood was a remarkable man. When 
 he came there was some opposition to the school being 
 established where it is, but when he died the mayor of 
 Austin and the City Council attended the funeral in a 
 body. Colonel E. M. House, who lived in Austin, said 
 that Dr. Lovinggood was one of the greatest educators 
 the Negro race had ever produced." 
 
 "It sounds as though we had come to a band concert 
 instead of a ball game," said J. W. as the car ap 
 proached the inclosed grounds from which music and 
 shouting were heard. 
 
 "Yes, we have a pretty good college band, and they 
 always get out on occasions like this," said his com 
 panion. 
 
 Just then the car passed inside the gates, but no one 
 noticed it, for everybody's attention was fixed on some 
 thing far more important. A home team player had 
 just hit a ball into deep center, and the runner who 
 had been on second had already passed third base and 
 was well on his way home. The band was playing 
 boisterously, and several hundred students and friends 
 in the grandstand were jumping, shouting, and waving 
 their hands in approved rooter fashion. 
 
 "I haven't heard anything like that since I was in 
 college," said J. W. when the runner had crossed the
 
 A SURPRISE 107 
 
 plate and the uproar had somewhat subsided. "It does 
 me good just to hear the shouting." Although he 
 spoke casually, he was conscious inside that he was 
 far more surprised than he was willing to show. He 
 never had seen a ball game played by colored teams, and 
 he hadn't quite pictured the thing in his mind before. 
 Baseball was what it was, to be sure, no matter who 
 played it, but in his heart he knew that this game was 
 much more like what he had been accustomed to in his 
 own college days than he had expected. 
 
 He stayed through ,the remaining innings of the 
 game, the home team winning handily, to the delight of 
 the assembled crowd. Then he rode with his new 
 friend back to his hotel. 
 
 As they neared the hotel J. W. turned suddenly to 
 his companion and said, "Here I have been with you 
 most of the afternoon and you haven't told me a thing 
 about yourself. I take it for granted you are one of 
 the teachers at Samuel Huston College or connected 
 with the school in some way?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the Negro. "I do some teaching 
 there. I am also the president. That was my house 
 next to the Eliza Dee Home. I am not sure that I 
 pointed it out to you." 
 
 "President? And here I've been monopolizing you 
 all afternoon ! Well, I'll admit it has been a pleasure 
 to be with you and to see that game, even if our meet 
 ing was a little informal," said J. W. "In the future 
 I'll know what folks are talking about, anyway, when 
 they say 'Samuel Huston College.' I am ready to
 
 io8 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 believe on the spot that you are doing a great work 
 for your people." 
 
 "Well, we think we are doing some things worth 
 while," said the president, "but it is by the help of 
 folks like you, who have had the faith to support the 
 institutions of the church even when they didn't know 
 all about them. That has made our work possible. You 
 know there is a verse in the Bible which says, 'Blessed 
 are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.' 
 Sometimes I think of that verse in connection with our 
 many friends who have never seen what we are doing 
 and yet have believed in us enough to help." 
 
 J. W. had one more opportunity to see what the 
 church was doing among Negroes before he was 
 headed for home at the end of his trip. He had been 
 spending several days in New Orleans, and on Saturday 
 afternoon had ridden out on beautiful Saint Charles 
 Avenue to New Orleans College, another Methodist 
 Episcopal School for Negroes. Later he had visited 
 the Flint-Goodridge Hospital and Nurse Training 
 School, located in another part of the city, and had 
 come to see something of the beneficent service which 
 that unique institution was rendering. 
 
 It was while he was making these visits that the idea 
 occurred to him of attending a Negro church service 
 on the morrow, Sunday. His inquiries brought 
 prompt information, and the next morning, with 
 the address of the largest Methodist Episcopal 
 church in the city for Negroes in his pocket, he set out. 
 He thought he had made a sufficiently early start, but
 
 A SURPRISE 109 
 
 when he reached the church he found every seat al 
 ready occupied by well-dressed colored people, and 
 still others were standing. The problem of getting a 
 seat did not long worry him, however, for almost be 
 fore he knew it he had been ushered to the platform. 
 
 It was evident even to a visitor that the occasion was 
 a special one. J. W. learned later that the congrega 
 tion always filled the church to the doors, but this 
 morning every side room was filled also, and standing 
 room was in demand. The service began and moved 
 forward in orderly fashion, but there was abundant 
 evidence of anticipation and suppressed excitement. 
 
 At last the secret came out. It appeared that the 
 congregation had outgrown the church, and, what was 
 more significant, the program of the church had become 
 altogether too varied and extensive to be carried on 
 effectively with the facilities available. If the work 
 was to go forward, it was necessary to purchase an ad 
 joining property and build for the enlarged needs of the 
 work. 
 
 For weeks now the congregation had been planning 
 and working toward a special offering which would 
 make possible this much-needed forward step, and this 
 was the day of the special collection. 
 
 At last the time for the offering arrived, and J. W. 
 saw a sight as interesting as it was unexpected. He had 
 been accustomed to seeing dignified plate-bearers pass 
 down the aisles and collect the offering, but this time 
 the collectors took their places by the altar, and the 
 members of the congregation came forward to them
 
 no J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 and placed their offerings for the church on large tables. 
 There were tottering old men and strong young men ; 
 women with gray hair and sprightly young maidens; 
 boys and girls of various ages. It seemed as though 
 there would be no end to the long lines of folks. And 
 every one who came brought something to put on the 
 table. Some of the gifts were small and some large, 
 but every giver seemed to be a happy giver. Quickly 
 the money piled up, until from sheer weariness J. W. 
 ceased to wonder how much it might be. And then 
 they sang, first the songs which J. W. had known and 
 loved as a boy, and then the songs which had come 
 down out of the days of slavery songs of thanksgiv 
 ing, songs of resignation, and songs of triumph. Never 
 had J. W. heard singing quite like that before. 
 
 Meanwhile the money was being counted, and at last 
 the figures were ready to be announced. Even J. W. 
 was dumfounded when he heard the announcement of 
 a total a little over eight thousand dollars. "Eight 
 thousand dollars in cash," thought J. W., "not in 
 pledges, or signed cards, or promises to pay, but in 
 good American cash ! I wish some of the people back 
 home could see this. And to think that these folk or 
 their parents a few years ago were slaves. It looks to 
 me that if the church ever made a good investment it 
 was when it invested money in its missionary work for 
 Negroes." 
 
 That night at the hotel before going to bed J. W. 
 wrote a long letter to Jeannette. We are not at liberty 
 to record here all that he said, but that part of the com-
 
 A SURPRISE in 
 
 munication which is relevant to this story was in sub 
 stance as follows: 
 
 "I am getting pretty anxious to get home. This trip 
 has been long enough, and I think that by the last of 
 next week you will see me in Delafield. I have sold a 
 lot of goods since I have been away, but I have also 
 done a good many other things that I must wait to tell 
 you about until I get home. I used to think that a man 
 was educated when he got through college, but I have 
 learned so much since I left school that I have about 
 decided that I didn't know much of anything when I 
 graduated. This last trip has been a wonderful one for 
 me in fact, it seems as though each one is better than 
 the last. I am learning to keep my eyes and ears open, 
 in places that seem least promising, and I am discov 
 ering many things that are good for me to see and hear. 
 One thing in particular I have gained out of this trip; 
 I am more convinced than ever that in a great country 
 like ours the question of a man's complexion isn't half 
 as important as the question of what kind of a man he 
 really is inside. We'll get a chance to talk this over 
 when I get home, and I can tell you then just what I 
 mean."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 
 
 WHEN J. W. visited the Flint-Goodridge Hospital 
 and Nurse Training School in New Orleans he had had 
 quite an extended conversation with the Negro doctor 
 who was serving as house physician for the institution. 
 The doctor had mentioned in passing that he had re 
 ceived his medical training at Meharry Medical College, 
 Nashville, Tennessee. Now, it must be confessed that 
 up to that time J. W. had hardly heard of Meharry 
 Medical College, and he had forgotten, if, indeed, he 
 had ever known, that it was one of the schools under 
 the auspices of the Board of Education for Negroes of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church. However, the name 
 had stuck, and he had promised himself that, if he 
 ever got to Nashville, he would make it a point to visit 
 the school. 
 
 It was not until the March following his visit to 
 New Orleans that J. W. arrived in the capital city of 
 "Sunny Tennessee." He had not forgotten his pur 
 pose, and in his first moments of leisure he took occa 
 sion to discover the location of the college and the street 
 car he must take to reach it. A short ride brought him 
 to the school, with its several buildings on either side 
 of a city street. In front of these stood a number of 
 
 112
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 113 
 
 automobiles, which J. W. learned later belonged to cer 
 tain of the professors who had their own practice in 
 the city, and who gave several hours each week regu 
 larly to lecturing at the college. A number of young 
 men and women were passing back and forth from one 
 building to another. Of one of these J. W., as his cus 
 tom was, made inquiry concerning the college offices. 
 He was directed to the brick building immediately in 
 front of him, and he entered to find a young-looking 
 white man busily engaged at a flat-topped desk with 
 some papers. 
 
 "Pardon me," said J. W. "My name is Farwell. I 
 am a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and, 
 as I happened to be in the city, I thought I would like, 
 if possible, to get a glimpse of your school. I wonder 
 if I could meet the president or have a chance to talk 
 with someone who knows about the work." 
 
 In the light of earlier experiences he was not greatly 
 surprised at the answer he got. "I am supposed to be 
 the president," said the man with a twinkle in his eye. 
 "We are delighted to see you, and it will be a pleasure 
 for me to tell you about what we are doing and to show 
 you through our buildings. 
 
 "By the way," he continued, "where do you come 
 from?" 
 
 "I am traveling out of Saint Louis," said J. W. 
 
 "We have a good many graduates in Saint Louis," 
 commented the president. "I believe we have consider 
 ably more than a hundred altogether in Missouri, count 
 ing doctors, dentists, and pharmacists."
 
 H4 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "Oh, do you graduate dentists and pharmacists too?" 
 asked J. W. 
 
 "Oh, yes," the president assured him. "We have 
 thriving Dental and Pharmaceutical Departments, and 
 in addition to our Medical Department recently we 
 have added a Nurse Training Department." 
 
 "Do most of your graduates go South to practice?" 
 said J. W. 
 
 "Well, they are all over the South," answered the 
 president, "but they are also scattered all through the 
 North and in most of the Western States to California 
 and Oregon. We have more than three hundred and 
 fifty graduates here in Tennessee, about two hundred 
 and fifty in Georgia, nearly as many in Texas and so on 
 in varying numbers in the other Southern States. In 
 the North we have some in New York and New Jer 
 sey, more in Ohio, and in and around Chicago we have 
 a great many. As a matter of fact, we have graduates 
 in the District of Columbia and in thirty-eight States 
 of the Union. Besides that, about fifty of our gradu 
 ates are in foreign countries." 
 
 "I didn't realize that your work was so extensive," 
 said J. W. "The college must be an old one." 
 
 "It was organized in 1876, and the man who started 
 it is living here now. Perhaps you noticed that fine 
 brick house on the left. That is his home. The alumni 
 built it for him when he retired and became president 
 emeritus about a year ago. I have been in charge since 
 then. At first the Medical Department was started as 
 a department of Walden College, one of the schools
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 115 
 
 of the Freedmen's Aid Society The Board of Educa 
 tion for Negroes of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 they call it now. Ten years later the Dental Depart 
 ment was added, and three years after that the Phar 
 maceutical Department was included. This was the 
 first medical school for Negroes west of the Alleghe- 
 nies. The school or rather the schools, for you see 
 we have four distinct schools is now entirely sepa 
 rate from Walden. 
 
 "Just let me get my hat," continued the president, 
 "and I will go with you through the buildings." 
 
 "You see," he said as he returned, "this was the first 
 building. We use it now for our offices, and we have 
 a number of lecture rooms upstairs. The president has 
 always lived in this building too. Suppose we go across 
 the street and begin there." 
 
 As they approached the neat, substantial-looking 
 brick building on the opposite side of the street the 
 president continued, "We use this building largely for 
 our dental and pharmaceutical work. This room on 
 the left is our pharmacy. I want you to meet the doctor 
 in charge. He is one of our graduates. He has been 
 a most loyal son of Meharry. It is he who has been 
 practically responsible for the building up of this de 
 partment. Several hundred pupils have been graduated 
 from the department, and we have about one hundred 
 and fifty enrolled in it now." 
 
 J. W. and his guide entered the pharmacy, with its 
 tiers of bottle-filled shelves, met the doctor in charge, 
 and then got a glimpse of the laboratory where various
 
 ii6 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 students were at work compounding mixtures which 
 reminded J. W. of his own experience with college 
 chemistry. 
 
 From the Pharmaceutical Department they passed to 
 rooms where dental students were busily engaged in 
 manufacturing and vulcanizing dental plates, and to 
 others where more students were listening to lectures 
 on dental subjects or were engaged in the discussion of 
 dental matters or in the answering of questions. At 
 last they reached the top floor of the building, and the 
 president said, as he stepped aside to allow J. W. to 
 enter the rooms, "This is our dental clinic." 
 
 The sight which met J. W.'s eyes was worth the 
 climb. The room was a large one, evidently the full 
 length of the building. Many windows admitted the 
 sunlight, and facing these were long rows of modern 
 dental chairs, occupied by patients of varying ages. 
 The advanced dental students of the school were busily 
 at work under the direction of the instructors. Un 
 sound teeth were being filled, impressions for artificial 
 sets were being taken, and other dental activities were 
 in progress. 
 
 "This looks like the real thing," said J. W. 
 
 "Yes, we treat thousands of cases in there," 
 answered the president. "Of course we couldn't do 
 our work without that clinic." 
 
 "Do you charge anything for the work done ?" asked 
 J. W. " 
 
 "We make a small charge for the materials," said 
 the president, "when the patient is able to pay. But
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 117 
 
 we charge nothing for the work itself. We are too glad 
 to get a chance to do it." 
 
 "Some of the work would never be done at all, prob 
 ably, if it were not for this opportunity to get it done 
 so cheaply?" remarked J. W., questioningly. 
 
 "You're right there," said the president. "Much of 
 it could never be done if it were not for this clinic. I 
 guess we are doing a little missionary work as well as 
 turning out dentists." 
 
 When they were once more on the street the presi 
 dent proceeded to point out the college buildings which 
 were in sight. 
 
 "This fine building next door is the G. W. Hubbard 
 Hospital, named in honor of the president emeritus. 
 It is a blessing to the colored people of Nashville, and, 
 of course, a great asset to the school. The colored 
 people themselves gave the first money for the erection 
 of this hospital, and they are quite proud of it. That 
 beautiful brick residence next to it is the home built 
 by the alumni for the former president, upon his re 
 tirement. The building across the street from us is 
 the Anderson Anatomical Hall. It was the gift of an 
 alumnus of the school, who chose this way of showing 
 his appreciation for what Meharry has done and is 
 doing for the Negro. The building next to it is the 
 Meharry Auditorium. Down the street a little further 
 are a number of other buildings which we are beginning 
 to use now. They were used originally for Walden 
 College, but since that institution has been moved to 
 another site, we are to have the use of those buildings,
 
 n8 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 or as many of them as are adapted to our purposes. We 
 can go through the buildings, and then I want you to 
 come back and visit some of our classes. You ought 
 to call on the former president too. Then we have a 
 meeting of all the students called for a little later. 
 Possibly you would like to attend that." 
 
 J. W. and his guide made a hurried trip through 
 the hospital, speaking to some of the patients, visiting 
 the operating room, and meeting the doctor in charge 
 and some of the nurses in training. They also visited 
 the anatomical hall, where J. W. saw earnest students 
 engaged in a sort of work from which he decided he 
 would just as soon be excused, and then they walked 
 down the street until they got a glimpse of the Walden 
 buildings which were being added to the school equip 
 ment. 
 
 "You will see the auditorium when the students as 
 semble," said the president, "and I do want you to get 
 into at least one class." 
 
 And so J. W. found himself in a room with some 
 sixty students. They were mostly young men, but 
 there were two or three young women. The teacher 
 was an alert Negro doctor apparently of middle age. 
 The subject had to do with the practice of medicine. 
 The teacher was calling for reports from individual 
 pupils as to the symptoms which might be expected to 
 show themselves in connection with certain diseases, 
 and the sort of treatment which they would prescribe. 
 
 J. W. was surprised not only at the sharp, clear- 
 cut answers, but also at the ease with which the students
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 119 
 
 used scientific terms of which he did not so much as 
 know the meaning. The hour was a fascinating one for 
 him. He did not learn much about disease or the prac 
 tice of medicine, but at least he came to a fresh realiza 
 tion of the fact that the color of a man's skin did not 
 necessarily determine his intellectual ability. He saw 
 more clearly than he had ever seen before that it was 
 hardly safe to put limits upon the development of any 
 individual. If these Negro students were capable of 
 becoming good physicians, surgeons, dentists, and phar 
 macists, then, so far as J. W. was concerned, he could 
 not think for the moment of any realm of learning or 
 activity into which they might not delve with profit. 
 
 After the class was dismissed J. W. made his call 
 upon the retired president, a courtly doctor of the old 
 school, and spent with him a delightful half-hour. 
 
 "I wish," said J. W. after they were comfortably 
 seated, "that you would tell me about the early days of 
 the school, and how you came to be connected with it." 
 
 "If you get me started on that subject, I might talk 
 a long time," said his host. "You see, I am an old man, 
 and I haven't much to do now but talk. This school 
 and I have practically grown up together, so I know 
 more about it than anything else." 
 
 "I am ready to listen to anything you will say," said 
 J. W. "I am not easily frightened." 
 
 "In a way I'll have to begin with myself," said the 
 old man. "I was born up in New Hampshire in 1841 ; 
 that's over eighty years ago. We had one hundred 
 acres of fairly rough land and kept four cows. There
 
 120 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 weren't many kinds of farm work that I didn't do in 
 those days, but in between I went to school first at 
 the public school and then at the academy. I taught 
 school for several years, and in 1864 I came South to 
 do religious work among the soldiers. I expected to go 
 to Atlanta, but was kept in Nashville by reason of the 
 fact that the railroads had been torn up. While I 
 was waiting I was set at the task of teaching Negro 
 soldiers. After the war I continued for several years 
 to teach Negroes in the public schools here. Then I 
 took up the study of medicine, and was graduated from 
 the Medical Department of the University of Ten 
 nessee. I had begun to practice medicine when Dr. 
 R. S. Rust, who was then secretary of the Freedmen's 
 Aid Society, asked me to undertake the establishment 
 of a Medical Department in connection with Central 
 Tennessee College, the school later to be known as 
 Walden University. I agreed to undertake the job, 
 and I have worked at it steadily for nearly forty-five 
 years. In more than forty years of service I was 
 absent from my office for all causes a total of twelve 
 days. In some respects it has been a slow, steady task, 
 but there has been some progress. Of course all of 
 these buildings have been built since I came, for we 
 began with nothing. Then, too, we have graduated 
 about twenty-five hundred students, of whom about 
 twenty-two hundred are still living. Our enrollment 
 has increased also. This year I think we have nearly 
 seven hundred in all departments." 
 "Are they all Methodists?" said J. W.
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 121 
 
 "Oh, no," answered the old man. "We don't know 
 any denominational line when it comes to students. We 
 have Presbyterians and Congregationalists and a lot 
 of Baptists. Occasionally we have Catholic students 
 too. The Baptists have been especially loyal to the 
 school, and 'Meharry Day' is celebrated in the colored 
 Baptist churches as enthusiastically as in Methodist 
 churches. We have had the cooperation of the South 
 ern white man here, also. When I began the work an 
 ex-Confederate surgeon was my assistant. Some of 
 the best white doctors in town have helped me in the 
 work for many years, and the professors at Vanderbilt 
 University, that remarkable school for white students 
 which is only a few blocks from us, have helped in 
 many ways. When I retired from the presidency a 
 year ago some of the local papers took occasion to say 
 some very nice things about us and our work." 
 
 "What kind of homes do most of your students come 
 f rom?" asked J.W. 
 
 "For the most part from poor homes," continued 
 the doctor. "A good many of them were born in such 
 little cabins as you see all over the Southland. They 
 have come up through the discipline of hard work and 
 hard study. Many of them are graduates of other 
 schools under the auspices of the Board of Education 
 for Negroes. Most of them are working their way 
 through school. 
 
 "Possibly you noticed that we have no college dormi 
 tories. We expect to have some as soon as possible, 
 but in the past we have managed without them because
 
 122 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 so many of the students have been employed all over 
 the city. Often they room where they work. Some of 
 them tend furnaces, take care of yards and do other 
 work about the houses. Some work in tailor shops, 
 some in barber shops and some in shoeshining parlors. 
 Some wait on table, others wash dishes, and some serve 
 as porters. One boy is working his way through the 
 Dental Department by selling pies. A good many of 
 the students work right through the noon hour here 
 and get along on two meals a day. In the summer 
 vacation they scatter in all directions. Some go back 
 to the farms, some teach school in the South, and 
 others go North to work in hotels, on Pullman trains, 
 on river boats, or in factories, where they seem to 
 have little trouble in getting work. If I do say it, I 
 think we get the pick of the rising generation right 
 here. Occasionally a man turns out bad, but most of 
 our men have gone out to live wholesome Christian 
 lives in the communities to which they have gone." 
 
 "I don't want to break off the story," said J. W., 
 "but I must leave in a moment, and I want to ask you 
 one more question. Why was the school named 
 'Meharry'?" 
 
 "That's an easy one," laughed the old man. "It 
 was because the Meharry brothers in the early days 
 gave the money which made the work possible. Pos 
 sibly you don't know who the 'Meharry brothers' were, 
 but I can tell you quickly. There were five of them in 
 all Alexander, Hugh, David, Samuel, and Jesse. 
 Rather substantial names, don't you think ? Well, they
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 123 
 
 were of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Their parents came to 
 this country, got out into western Pennsylvania and 
 at last floated down the Ohio River in a flatboat. They 
 chose a place in the wilderness of Ohio, and there they 
 settled. While the boys were still young the father 
 was killed. I think it was by a falling tree, as he was 
 returning home from a camp meeting. At any rate, 
 the mother was left with a family of five boys to raise, 
 and she did her task well. The boys were all loyal 
 Methodists. They all became successful farmers ex 
 cept Alexander, and he became a Methodist minister. 
 Through Dr. Rust they became interested in this proj 
 ect of establishing a medical school for Negroes. They 
 all gave toward it, and, although their gifts would not 
 be considered large to-day, they did make the work pos 
 sible, and, before they finished giving, their contribu 
 tions amounted to quite a number of thousand dollars. 
 They were devoted friends of the school until their 
 death. Of course they are all dead now." 
 
 "The Meharry brothers certainly did a fine tiling 
 when they provided that money," said J. W. as he rose 
 to leave, "but what good would the money have done 
 without someone like you to stay on the job for so many 
 years ? I am inclined to think that the record of your 
 personal achievement here would be hard to equal, 
 and now that you are an old man I am not afraid of 
 making you vain by saying so. I judge you haven't 
 grown rich at the task, but your life work has affected 
 the welfare of a race and of a nation. The recollection 
 of that fact ought to bring you more satisfaction than
 
 124 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 any amount of money could in these days when for 
 the first time you have the leisure to look back over the 
 busy days that have passed. I consider it an honor to 
 have met you, and I hope you may live many years to 
 see Meharry become more useful than even you have 
 dared to forecast." 
 
 That was quite a speech for J. W., but, as he thought 
 it over after he was outside, he decided that the occasion 
 demanded nothing less. As he came out the students 
 were just gathering in the auditorium, and the presi 
 dent was waiting for him. 
 
 "This assembly is called for a special purpose to 
 day," said the president. "You will see what that is 
 when I speak. We didn't know that we were going to 
 have company, but I want you to come up on the plat 
 form with me, even if I do most of the talking." 
 
 "If you please," said J. W., "I would prefer to sit 
 on the back seat and watch the proceedings from there. 
 I'm not the platform kind." 
 
 "If that suits you better," said the president, "we 
 will let it go that way." 
 
 The room was already nearly filled as they entered. 
 J. W. found a vacant seat in the rear, and the presi 
 dent made his way to the platform. In a moment all 
 was quiet, and the president rose to speak. 
 
 "Men," said he, "I have called you together to-day 
 for a very definite purpose. What I have to say will 
 not take much time, and most of you do not need to 
 have me say it. In so large a group of students, how 
 ever, there are bound to be some who either do not
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 125 
 
 fully understand what is required of them or who get 
 careless in the fulfillment of their obligations. It is 
 perhaps unnecessary for me to remind you that this 
 institution has some rules some very definite rules. I 
 did not make those rules, but we all understand what 
 they are. They are clearly printed in the catalogue 
 of the school, and it is stated there that, 'Every stu 
 dent, by matriculation, is regarded as having pledged 
 to observe these and all other regulations of the insti 
 tution. Those who are unwilling to keep this pledge 
 are urged not to apply for admission.' It chances to be 
 my responsibility to see that the rules of the institution 
 are enforced, and this I propose to do without fear or 
 favor. It has come to my attention that some of you 
 have grown careless at certain points in regard to the 
 keeping of these regulations, and, in order that there 
 may be no misunderstanding, I want to read to you 
 some extracts from the rules as printed : 
 
 " 'Meharry Medical College reserves the right to dis 
 miss students at any time if they are considered unsat 
 isfactory, no definite charge being necessary. 
 
 " 'Profanity, gambling, betting, are not tolerated by 
 the institution. Students who engage in the same are 
 invariably dismissed. 
 
 " The use of alcoholic drinks is also strictly for 
 bidden. 
 
 " 'The use of tobacco in any form is not allowed on 
 the college grounds or about the buildings. Students 
 are not permitted to visit questionable places of amuse 
 ment.
 
 126 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 " 'Immoral or unworthy conduct while absent from 
 the institution will render the student subject to dis 
 cipline.' 
 
 "That sounds to me like good clear English, and I 
 believe we all understand what it means. Any infrac 
 tions of those rules will be treated with vigor. I am 
 sure that you men understand the spirit of the school, 
 and that you will cooperate in seeing that the rules are 
 observed. It is of the utmost importance that men go 
 ing out into the professions which you have chosen 
 shall go out with high ideals, and morally clean. Here, 
 however, we have an added responsibility. This is a 
 church school. The men who have made this institu 
 tion possible were religious men. They expect us to 
 lead clean lives, and we owe it to them and to ourselves 
 to live up to those expectations. I am counting on you, 
 and I know you will not fail me. I did feel, however, 
 that this frank talk with you might clear the air and 
 help you to understand my own attitude in the matter. 
 I trust this friendly word will be sufficient. There 
 have been recent violations of the rules. If these are 
 repeated we shall be forced to act promptly and vig 
 orously." 
 
 After the assembly was dismissed the president 
 joined J. W. at the rear of the room. Smiling, he re 
 marked : "If you heard what I said, I guess it won't be 
 necessary for me to explain further. What do you 
 think of our auditorium, anyway? It is our only place 
 for large assemblies. We have our Epworth League, 
 Y. M. C. A., and other religious meetings here. The
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 127 
 
 rooms in the basement are available for laboratory use. 
 We couldn't get along without this building." 
 
 "It certainly is a sight to be remembered," said 
 J. W., "to see more than six hundred professional stu 
 dents together, all of them Negroes. Do you know the 
 question which came into my mind as I sat here? 
 Where would these students be if there were no Me- 
 harry?" 
 
 "That's hard to say," answered the president. "It's 
 a safe conclusion, however, that most of them would 
 never have aspired to become doctors, dentists, or phar 
 macists, and, if they had cherished such aspirations, 
 circumstances would have kept most of them from car 
 rying out their ambitions. You see, Meharry has be 
 come an ideal to the Negro. He thinks of the school 
 as his school and, then, for him it offers some things 
 that other schools do not offer. Howard University in 
 Washington, D. C, and Meharry were the pioneers in 
 medical education for Negroes. Of course, theoreti 
 cally, the medical schools of the North are open to 
 Negroes, but it is becoming more and more difficult for 
 a Negro to get into one of those schools. They are 
 often very unwelcome, and there are ways of keep 
 ing them out. Some schools don't object to one or two, 
 but they would very quickly put up the bars if large 
 numbers began to arrive. Then, too, for most of them 
 the cost is practically prohibitive. Here we seek to 
 keep the cost at the lowest possible figure, and there are 
 many opportunities for the students to work for part or 
 all of their expenses."
 
 128 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "I suppose the need for Negro doctors is great?" 
 said J. W. 
 
 "It surely is almost beyond belief," said the presi 
 dent. "We get the most urgent letters from communi 
 ties asking for doctors, but the really deepest needs are 
 the unspoken ones. The Negro needs medicine, sur 
 gery, sanitation, hygiene, and instruction in food 
 values, the care of infants, and in a multitude of other 
 subjects. The cost in human life of the general igno 
 rance is simply appalling, and the white man can no 
 more afford to allow it to go on than can the black 
 man. The only way out of the abyss of ignorance is 
 instruction, instruction, and then more instruction. The 
 stream of leaders which we are sending out from Me- 
 harry, and which we will continue to send out, is bound 
 to play an important part in saving the Negro from un 
 necessary suffering, disease, and death." 
 
 "How did you yourself get into this work?" asked 
 J. W., as ever interested in the personal element. 
 
 "I guess it's because I am by habit a missionary, and 
 I think of this as a missionary task for the benefit of 
 an entire race," answered the doctor. "I was born in 
 England, but I was educated in the United States. I 
 was left an orphan at an early age. When I had fin 
 ished school, including medical college, I went to China 
 as a medical missionary. I had some experiences over 
 there, I can assure you, including fighting the plague. 
 After a time I came back to the United States and be 
 came a teacher. I was then called to take charge of 
 this school, and, frankly, it's a pretty big task."
 
 HOW FAR CAN THE NEGRO GO? 129 
 
 "It must be a heavy load," said J. W., "but you have 
 many encouragements." 
 
 "Yes, there are many things to encourage us," said 
 the president, "but just now we are operating under 
 an enormous handicap." 
 
 "What is that?" said J.W. 
 
 "To put it bluntly," answered the president, "it is 
 the lack of money. We desperately need half-a-mil- 
 lion dollars. You understand, doubtless, that medical 
 schools are graded into classes, and they must measure 
 up to certain requirements before they can get a 'class 
 A' rating. These requirements cover such items as en 
 dowment, number of full-time professors, equipment, 
 and the like. Now, we think that we are turning out 
 well-drained graduates, but in several respects we fall 
 short of the requirements of a 'class A' school. In all 
 of these we could quickly measure up to standard if we 
 had the money. We already have a half a million 
 dollars of endowment, but we must have a half a mil 
 lion more. This is imperative, and, if you find anyone 
 who wants to invest a half a million dollars in a propo 
 sition which can demonstrate its worth, I wish you 
 would tell him that here is the chance. Our Negro 
 graduates have to take the same State examinations 
 as do white doctors, and in a number of States the 
 graduates of a 'class B' school are not even permitted 
 to try the examinations. I have now on my desk two 
 letters asking for Negro doctors, and both of them come 
 from States where our graduates are not permitted to 
 take the examination. This situation must be remedied.
 
 130 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 The Carnegie Foundation and the General Education 
 Board, both of which organizations, as you know, in 
 vestigate an institution with great care before making a 
 contribution to it, gave us recently one hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars each. That, with an appropria 
 tion from the Board of Education for Negroes, helped 
 us to complete our first half a million of endowment. 
 Now we must double it before we can breathe easy 
 again." 
 
 "Well, that is a proposition," said J. W., as he bade 
 the president good-by. "I haven't got half a million 
 dollars, but I'll be glad to help what I can, and I will 
 agree to tell some other folks about it too. You may 
 hear from me yet."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 
 
 THE evening after J. W. had visited Meharry Med 
 ical College he packed his grip, went down to the rail 
 road station, and in due time climbed into what was 
 recently described as "that modern instrument of hu 
 man torture known as a Pullman berth." 
 
 For J. W., however, there was little torture, this 
 time at least. He was ready for his berth. He went 
 to sleep in the city of Nashville, and the next morning 
 he awakened in Atlanta, Georgia. 
 
 J. W. had been looking forward to this trip to At 
 lanta. His hobby for the present was Negro schools, 
 and he was as enthusiastic about it as a stamp collector 
 is about a rare issue. He did not allow his hobby to in 
 terfere with his business, but he had heard so much 
 about the schools at Atlanta that he had somewhat the 
 feeling of a collector approaching a famous specimen. 
 
 It was Gammon Theological Seminary which was 
 particularly on his mind at the moment. He had known 
 of the institution vaguely long ago, but only recently 
 had he become particularly interested in it. On these 
 Southern trips he had met a number of Negro ministers 
 who had told him that they received their theological 
 training at Gammon, and all of them had spoken in the
 
 132 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 highest terms of their Alma Mater. The idea had in 
 some way come to him that the institution was a unique 
 one and worth seeing and since he was in Atlanta he 
 resolved to see it. 
 
 The first evening in the city he looked up the address 
 of the school and made inquiry as to its location. The 
 next evening he called up the school, and had a short 
 conversation with one of the professors who answered 
 the telephone, and the third afternoon he set out for 
 the campus. He had been told that it was situated on 
 the very edge of the city, and he had settled down in 
 the street car for a rather long ride when the conductor 
 informed him that the next stop was his. 
 
 As he alighted he found himself at the entrance to 
 extensive, shaded grounds, and on an eminence a con 
 siderable distance back from the main road two groups 
 of imposing buildings stood out in bold relief. It 
 looked as though they must house two separate institu 
 tions or two distinct parts of the same institution. One 
 or both of them might be Gammon Theological Semi 
 nary; he would soon find out. He chose the attractive 
 magnolia-shaded drive to the left, and followed it past 
 several well-built houses until he came to the large cen 
 tral brick structure which he had observed from the 
 distance. Several young Negroes stood talking on the 
 steps, and not far away others sat in the shade of the 
 trees, apparently studying or writing. 
 
 "Is this Gammon Theological Seminary?" inquired 
 J. W. of the young man nearest to him. 
 
 "It is," was the reply.
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 133 
 
 "Can you tell me where I can find the president?" 
 continued J. W. 
 
 "The office is just inside this building," was the 
 answer. "I think you will find him in there now." 
 
 J. W. entered the building and soon spied the door 
 marked, "President's Office." 
 
 The president was "in," the attendant informed him, 
 and could see his visitor at once. And so, almost 
 quicker than it takes to tell the story, J. W. was seated 
 facing the executive head of the institution which he 
 had come to visit. 
 
 "And what can I do for you?" said the president, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Possibly you will understand best, if I tell you who 
 I am," said J. W. 
 
 Once again he found himself going over his bit of 
 autobiography. "I am merely a Methodist layman, and 
 I am in the city selling goods. But I did not come out 
 here to sell anything; rather to see a little of your 
 school and to learn some things about what you are 
 doing and what you are trying to do. You see, I have 
 been educated in the theory that every church member 
 ought to know as much as he can know about what his 
 church is doing, and I try to live up to the theory by 
 improving such opportunities for observation as come 
 my way. Being just now a traveling man with a 
 Southern territory I am having rather unusually good 
 fortune in this respect. I have already visited several 
 of the schools under the auspices of our church's Board 
 of Education for Negroes, as well as some of the
 
 134 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 schools of other denominations and a number of the 
 independent institutions. I've been to these because it 
 is likely that a man can better understand what his own 
 church is doing when he knows something of the work 
 being done by other agencies." 
 
 "That's true," interjected the president. "It is all 
 part of the same work. Of course our seminary here 
 is a Methodist Episcopal institution, so far as responsi 
 bility is concerned, but, when it comes to the students, 
 we have many denominations included." 
 
 "How many students have you?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "About one hundred," said the president. "We 
 would like to have more, but a theological seminary 
 never seems to be the place to look for a crowd. I 
 believe our enrollment compares pretty well with that 
 of similar institutions for the white race. There are 
 a good many temptations to-day to draw young men 
 of every race into callings other than that of the min 
 istry, and yet, when you take everything into considera 
 tion, I doubt whether there is any calling which offers 
 more in the way of satisfaction or which provides a 
 finer opportunity for service." 
 
 "What kind of students do you get, mostly?" asked 
 J. W. 
 
 "Well, we get students of every sort," answered the 
 president. "We like to get college graduates, and we 
 always have a certain proportion of them in attendance, 
 but not so many as we would be glad to have. Then 
 we get some who have had a little college work, others 
 who have had only a high-school training, and still
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 135 
 
 others who have had only the training of a grade 
 school. Of course we can't do as much for them as we 
 can for those who have a satisfactory preparation for 
 the work, but we are able to help them a good deal, 
 after all, and we admit almost any one of good char 
 acter who gives promise of profiting to a reasonable 
 extent from the work. We confer degrees, however, 
 only on those who have a college education." 
 
 "What kind of course do you offer?" said J. W. 
 
 "If you will just glance through this catalogue," 
 said the president, "you will see what the courses in 
 clude. They cover Old Testament History, Christian 
 Ethics, Public Speaking, Composition and Rhetoric, 
 Christian Missions, New Testament Greek, Hebrew, 
 Church History, Church Music, Sociology, and numer 
 ous other courses. Some of them are elective and some 
 are required. You must visit some of the classes be 
 fore they are dismissed, and I think we had better go 
 right away or it will be too late." 
 
 With this remark the president led the way out into 
 the hall and opened the door of a room from which the 
 sound of voices was coming. Within sat more than 
 thirty young men apparently engaged in earnest dis 
 cussion with their teacher, the theme being the meaning 
 of a certain passage of the New Testament which is 
 couched in such distinctly Oriental terms as to make its 
 real significance somewhat obscure to one unac 
 quainted with Oriental customs and habits of expres 
 sion. 
 
 J. W. and his guide listened for a few moments to
 
 136 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 the discussion, and then passed on to another room 
 where a smaller group was more or less laboriously 
 translating New Testament Greek. In the next room 
 which they entered both teacher and pupils had their 
 coats off, and were busily engaged at large tables. 
 
 "Is this a class?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "Yes, this is a class in map-making," said the presi 
 dent. 
 
 "And how long has that been a part of the training 
 of a Christian minister?" laughed J. W. 
 
 "We have it, as you see," said the president. "But 
 we have been doing this sort of work only a short time. 
 We are able to do it now because of the cooperation 
 of the Board of Home Missions and Church Exten 
 sion. The officers of the Board have felt for some time 
 that the men who go out to do rural work ought to 
 have some special training for the special needs of that 
 work. We have agreed with them, but, in the past, we 
 have not been able to give the courses needed because 
 of other demands upon us. The Board has now placed 
 a man here to help us in that part of the work. He 
 becomes a regular member of the faculty. 
 
 "The making of parish maps is, of course, only a 
 detail of a much more elaborate program. We do feel, 
 however, that every minister ought to know how to 
 study his own parish and how to assemble the facts 
 concerning it. He can hardly work out an intelligent 
 program until he has done that, and a map is simply 
 the starting point for the study. It does a man good 
 to map his field and locate the roads, school houses,
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 137 
 
 lodge halls, churches, cotton gins, and other public and 
 semipublic institutions which it contains, as well as the 
 homes of the people among whom he is working. A 
 man has to know a lot about his field in order to make 
 a map of it. I'll admit that it is a new thing for the 
 Negro pastor to think in terms of maps and parish 
 surveys and community programs, but it is the thing 
 that is needed. In the past the average pastor down 
 here has gone at things in a rather haphazard sort of 
 way, but that won't work any longer. The Negro has 
 been loyal to the church, even when the church had 
 little to offer except a revival meeting once or twice a 
 year, but the younger generation aren't to be reached 
 by such method, or lack of method. We must put more 
 emphasis in the future on religious education and com 
 munity service. 
 
 "That means a good many changes a change in 
 the attitude and ideals of the Negro preacher, a change 
 in the kind of buildings to be built and used as churches, 
 and yet other and far-reaching changes. Of course 
 it's a long slow process, but we think we are on the right 
 track." 
 
 "I have been tremendously impressed with the in 
 adequacy of the church buildings I have seen," inter 
 jected J. W. "They all seem to be of one type four 
 walls and a roof only some are more dilapidated than 
 others." 
 
 "Yes," said the president, "the curse of the Negro 
 church to-day is that type of building, and, worse than 
 that, a program which demands nothing better. We
 
 138 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 must have more adaptable buildings, but we must also 
 have men trained to make effective use of those better 
 buildings. At Gammon we are trying to bring in the 
 new day by training the men." 
 
 "Wouldn't it be fine if something could be done for 
 the men who are already out in the work, but who never 
 had adequate training for it ?" ventured J. W. 
 
 "We are doing something for just that group," said 
 the president. "Every summer we cooperate with the 
 Department of Rural Work of the Board of Home 
 Missions and Church Extension in holding here a sum 
 mer school for rural pastors. We have some of the 
 most capable rural experts in the country on the faculty, 
 and there is always a large number of pastors enrolled. 
 We try to crowd as much training as possible into the 
 few weeks when the school is in session, and it has 
 already been demonstrated that the men do go home 
 with broader ideas to put into use in their respective 
 parishes." 
 
 "It certainly is a fine thing," said J. W. "I be 
 lieve they told me something about a summer school 
 for pastors over at Wiley College, but I didn't really 
 get the idea. That's one kind of work I believe in." 
 
 In the next room which they entered J. W. was sur 
 prised to find that nearly half of the class was made up 
 of Negro young women. "Are you training young 
 women to become ministers?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "No, not that," said the president. "This is our De 
 partment of Missions. Some of these young women are 
 wives of our students, and some are from the neighbor-
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 139 
 
 hood close at hand or from down in the city. Some 
 are Student Volunteers and may one day go to Africa 
 as missionaries. I don't know whether you have ever 
 heard about our special arrangement here for the teach 
 ing of missions. We are particularly fortunate in hav 
 ing at Gammon the headquarters of the Stewart Mis 
 sionary Foundation for Africa." 
 
 "I dislike to make the confession," said J. W., "but 
 I do not think I ever heard of it." 
 
 "I will tell you a little about it," said the president, 
 when they were once more out in the hall. "The 
 Stewart Missionary Foundation was established by a 
 Methodist minister named William Fletcher Stewart. 
 He believed thoroughly that the coming of the Negro 
 to America was providential, and that the Negro in 
 America should be trained to carry the gospel of Jesus 
 Christ back to his fellows in Africa. He wanted to 
 leave money for the carrying on of that sort of work. 
 The question was whether it should be centered near 
 his home in Illinois or at some other place. At last 
 Gammon Theological Seminary was chosen, and we 
 have benefited immeasurably by that choice. We have 
 already sent a good many of our students to Africa, 
 and hundreds of other students have gone out with an 
 intelligent knowledge of and interest in our missionary 
 work which they would not otherwise have had. Then 
 the Foundation carries on educational work in all of 
 the other Methodist Episcopal schools for Negroes, 
 and encourages the students to write missionary essays, 
 orations, and hymns, for which it offers prizes. It also
 
 140 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 publishes a missionary periodical known as The Foun 
 dation and in a number of other ways promotes inter 
 est in missions." 
 
 "I don't see how a Methodist minister ever got 
 enough money to found a work like that," laughed 
 J. W. 
 
 "Well, that is a story by itself," continued the presi 
 dent. "Mr. Stewart was a remarkable man in more 
 ways than one. He was born out in Ohio in the fron 
 tier days of 1824. As a boy he worked on a farm for 
 twenty-five cents a day, but he always managed to save 
 a portion of his earnings then, as he did later when his 
 salary as a minister was one hundred dollars a year. 
 He learned two things from his frugal parents one 
 was to save his money, and the other was to give sys 
 tematically to the missionary work of the church. In 
 college he boarded himself at a cost of from thirty to 
 forty cents per week, but he always had money to give 
 to missions. He was graduated at the age of eighteen 
 with the highest honors of his class. He felt that his 
 call to the Christian ministry was clear, and, although 
 he was offered a salary ten times larger in another field, 
 he accepted a circuit with eighteen appointments and 
 a salary of one hundred dollars per year. He traveled 
 it with horse and saddlebags, and, as of necessity he 
 lived most of the time among his people, he was able 
 to save a portion of his salary. He invested his savings 
 in land, together with six hundred dollars received 
 from his father, and to such good effect that he ulti 
 mately became a very wealthy man, although he never
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 141 
 
 left the ministry. The Stewart Missionary Foundation 
 was only one of many benevolences toward which he 
 contributed, but it is perhaps fair to say that no money 
 which he ever gave yielded him larger satisfaction than 
 did this. He established the work long enough before 
 he died so that he had the pleasure of watching it for 
 a number of years." 
 
 "That sounds like a fairy tale," ejaculated J. W., 
 "but I suppose it must be true, or you wouldn't tell 
 it to me." 
 
 "It's true enough," said the president, "and I haven't 
 told you half the story. I will give you a pamphlet 
 telling you about Mr. Stewart, and you can take it home 
 and read it at your leisure. 
 
 "I think now," he continued, "that we had better go 
 outside and see the campus and some of the other 
 buildings." 
 
 "You have an unusually spacious campus," said 
 J.W. 
 
 "Yes," replied the president, "we are proud of it. 
 It was part of a large tract of land secured originally 
 by Bishop Gilbert Haven for Clark University. At 
 that time it was entirely outside the city. Now the city 
 limits have been extended until we are included, al 
 though the campus of Clark University, which adjoins 
 us, is still outside. A good many people laughed when 
 the bishop secured this land. They said it was so far 
 out from town that no one would ever come here to 
 go to school. Now, you see how easily and quickly 
 it can be reached. In those days, however, there were
 
 142 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 no pavements, and the red Georgia mud was deep and 
 bad for travel. 
 
 "These houses," he continued, "are homes erected for 
 the professors, and this building on our right is our 
 library. We think it is a beautiful building, although 
 it may look small to you in comparison with some libra 
 ries which you have seen. Our main building here we 
 call 'Gammon Hall/ We have had to use it for all 
 sorts of purposes. For years we have been handi 
 capped in some respects for lack of space, but now we 
 are to have some relief, for this new building which 
 you see going up is to give us added school facilities. 
 The brick structure over here is our refectory. We 
 have had it only a few years. It is excellently adapted 
 to our purposes. Most of the students board there." 
 
 "And what are all of these cottages?" inquired J. W. 
 "Are they on the campus?" 
 
 "Yes, they all belong to us," replied the president. 
 "They represent what we believe to be an unusual and 
 most useful feature in a school of this sort. Those 
 are student cottages, provided for married men who 
 have started in the ministry, and then have become 
 awakened to the importance of special training for 
 their work. We have ten such cottages, and we give 
 the use of them free to the men and women who ought 
 to have them. They have made possible a seminary 
 education for many men who otherwise never would 
 have had one. Of course we don't allow young men 
 to get married and then come here to use the cottages 
 while they study. They are reserved for carefully in-
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 143 
 
 vestigated cases, in which the use of a cottage means 
 the difference between a seminary training and the 
 lack of one, to a man already in the ministry." 
 
 "I never heard of anything of the sort," J. W. ad 
 mitted. 
 
 "Possibly you would like to walk over to Clark Uni 
 versity," said the president. "This Seminary was origi 
 nally started as a Department of Theology in the Uni 
 versity, but it has since developed into an independent 
 institution. We now have no official relation to Clark, 
 except that we are both under the general supervision 
 of the Board of Education for Negroes of the Meth 
 odist Episcopal Church, but we do have a very close 
 fraternal relationship. Some of our students take 
 work in Clark, and some students from Clark take 
 work with us. You see we are only a few hundred feet 
 from each other." 
 
 "It looks to me as though Clark had some fine build 
 ings too," remarked J. W. as they entered the Clark 
 campus. "This one seems to be a new one, and from 
 the outside I have rarely seen a finer-looking school 
 building." 
 
 "It is a fine building," agreed the president. "This 
 is a product of the advance missionary program of the 
 church which grew out of the Centenary of Methodist 
 Missions. Years ago this institution was designated as 
 the one to be developed as a university, but the develop 
 ment has lagged for lack of funds to provide buildings 
 and an adequate teaching staff. The school has been 
 doing good work, but heretofore it has not measured
 
 144 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 up to its name. This remarkable new building is de 
 signed as the first long forward step in the new pro 
 gram of the school. It contains modern and well- 
 equipped recitation rooms and scientific laboratories, 
 and it will be, from now on, the center of the institu 
 tion's life." 
 
 "What is this 'L' extension at the front?" asked 
 J. W. 
 
 "That is the new chapel," answered the president. 
 "They have named it after a Negro who has been a 
 teacher here nearly all of his life, and who served for 
 a number of years very successfully as the president of 
 the school. He retired recently, and was granted a pen 
 sion for life by the Carnegie Foundation. At the ex 
 treme opposite end of the long building is a modern 
 gymnasium with a swimming pool and other acces 
 sories. 
 
 "The building just beyond this," continued the presi 
 dent, "is the former college building. It has always 
 been used partly as a boys' dormitory, and it may be 
 devoted altogether to that purpose now. Beyond that 
 is another structure, originally erected for purposes of 
 industrial training. In front of these buildings is the 
 athletic field. This building at our left is the girls' 
 dormitory and boarding hall, and the building beyond 
 that is the Thayer Industrial Home, carried on by the 
 Woman's Home Missionary Society in connection with 
 the school. The buildings which you see in the dis 
 tance are some of the farm buildings, for the school 
 has quite a farm, including a dairy and a good many
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 145 
 
 pigs and hens. The school still owns several hundred 
 acres of land which it hopes some day to sell off for 
 building lots, and, with the proceeds, to enlarge its en 
 dowment. About two hundred acres have already been 
 sold, I believe, and the proceeds turned into the endow 
 ment fund." 
 
 "It has the possibilities of a really great school," 
 said J. W. 
 
 "Yes, and it is growing rapidly now," said the presi 
 dent. "A new day seems to have dawned for it. Its 
 graduates are already filling many places of responsi 
 bility." 
 
 As J. W. and the president started back toward the 
 Gammon campus they met an aged colored man com 
 ing down the walk. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Doctor," said the president, "and 
 how are you to-day?" 
 
 "Very well, thank you," replied the old gentleman. 
 "I am out for my afternoon stroll." 
 
 "I want you to meet a new friend of mine," said the 
 president, as he presented J. W. "I was just telling 
 him a little about you when we were over by the new 
 chapel." 
 
 "That new chapel does give folks a chance to talk 
 about me," said the Doctor, "but I want to say that I 
 didn't have anything to do with choosing the name for 
 it. They seemed to want to name it after me, and 
 what could an old man do with so many young ones 
 against him?" 
 
 "It's a beautiful building," said J. W.
 
 146 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "And it's got a good name," quickly added the presi 
 dent. 
 
 "It pleases me, of course," said the old teacher. 
 "And I have tried to make the name a worthy one. 
 Whether I have succeeded or not I must leave for 
 others to decide." 
 
 When they had passed on, the president turned to 
 J. W. and said : "That man has made a record of which 
 he and his friends may well be proud. He has a bril 
 liant intellect and oratorical gifts of rare excellence, 
 and his life has been beyond reproach. He was the 
 first Negro to be regularly employed as a teacher by 
 the Freedmen's Aid Society, way back in the seventies. 
 He is the author of one or two books, and he gained 
 quite a reputation as an orator. He has spoken, by 
 special request, in Henry Ward Beecher's church, and 
 has occupied other prominent platforms. He is the 
 only man who was ever granted the degree of LL.D. 
 from Atlanta University, and he is the only secretary 
 which the Board of Trustees of Gammon Theological 
 Seminary and the Board of Trustees of Clark Uni 
 versity have ever had. He spent the best part of his 
 life here on this campus, and, although he has now re 
 tired from active service, the influence of his person 
 ality is still felt in the two schools. You would enjoy 
 sitting down to visit with him for an hour, if you had 
 the time, and he would enjoy it too. He is a man of 
 broad culture and wide experience, and his name has 
 for years been in Who's Who." 
 
 "It would be a delight to talk with him, I know,"
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 147 
 
 said J. W., "but I am afraid I shall have to forego that 
 pleasure this time. I must IDC going back to town in 
 a few minutes. There is one question that I want to 
 ask, however, before I go. What gave Gammon Theo 
 logical Seminary its name ?" 
 
 "The school was named after Elijah H. Gammon, 
 the original and practically the only benefactor of the 
 school. He did not know that it was being named after 
 him until the job was done, but it is most appropriate 
 that it should be so named. He gave twenty thousand 
 dollars originally, to establish a Chair of Theology in 
 Clark University, and when the school became an inde 
 pendent one he gave much larger sums. Practically all 
 of the buildings here were erected with his money, and 
 before he died, he made such provision for the school 
 that it now has a half a million dollars endowment." 
 
 "Who was he, and how did he make his money?" 
 inquired J. W. 
 
 "Possibly you will think that I am trying to play a 
 joke on you when I tell you that he too was a Methodist 
 minister. Let me add at once, however, that he didn't 
 save his money out of his salary. He was born just a 
 little more than a century ago, on a rough New Eng 
 land farm, and came up through the discipline of hard 
 work. He taught school for a time, and then became 
 a minister, at the age of twenty-four. He preached 
 for quite a number of years both in New England and 
 in the Middle West, and served as a presiding elder. A 
 chronic bronchial difficulty eventually forced him to 
 give up preaching altogether. He spent a year looking
 
 148 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 around, before deciding what he would do next. At 
 length he determined to begin the manufacture of har 
 vesting machinery. In this new field he not only made 
 a very important contribution to the development of 
 modern harvesting implements, but he also succeeded 
 in amassing a fortune, which he used, not for selfish 
 gratification, but for the advancement of the kingdom 
 of God on earth." 
 
 "It surely is a coincidence that Mr. Gammon, as well 
 as Mr. Stewart, should have been a Methodist minis 
 ter," said J. W. "I have been deeply stirred by the 
 stories of these men. Little we realize how many such 
 unselfish men there are in the world, and yet there are 
 enough needs for Christian service to attract many 
 more strong men of ability and means, whose lives 
 might be dominated by the same high ideals that con 
 trolled these two men. 
 
 "I must thank you," he continued, "for a most profit 
 able afternoon. I have been in the South a good deal 
 during the last few months, but this is my last trip 
 into this part of the country for some time. I am glad 
 that I was able to see this unique school after seeing 
 the others. I shall never forget this visit, nor the 
 stories of the men who have helped to make the work 
 possible. You are working away at a difficult, but at 
 the same time an inspiring, task, in undertaking the 
 training of a race's religious leaders. The sort of 
 ministers the Negro has in the next generation will, to 
 a large extent, determine what the Negro will be in the 
 following generation. I can see that in a real sense
 
 RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF A RACE 149 
 
 you are helping to shape his destiny. And I like to 
 feel too that I am a partner in the work, for I am a 
 member of the church which has made it possible. In 
 a few days I shall be back at home. I don't know when, 
 if ever, I shall be in Atlanta again, but I wouldn't have 
 missed this opportunity of talking with you and see 
 ing something of your work for a great deal. I shall 
 remember you and it, and I shall be able to pray and 
 give more intelligently in the future because of what 
 I have learned." 
 
 "The pleasure has been at least half ours," answered 
 the president. "We believe in what we are doing, and 
 we are glad to show what we have and explain our 
 work to visitors like yourself. If you do come this 
 way again, be sure to come out and see us." 
 
 J. W. walked thoughtfully back down the magnolia 
 lined drive to the car line. The next day he left Atlanta 
 for Saint Louis, and a few days later he was at home 
 in Delafield.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 
 
 J. W.'s homecoming after his trip to Nashville 
 and Atlanta had unusual zest both for himself and 
 Jeannette. Of course Jeannette was at the station to 
 greet him, as she always was, but this time there was 
 a new light even in her eyes. She had something won 
 derful to look forward to. They had talked it over 
 the last time J. W. had been at home, and now the time 
 was at hand when the plans which they had formed 
 could be realized. It was on this wise. 
 
 Jeannette and J. W. had been married while yet 
 Pastor Drury was disabled, and, as they could not tell 
 just how events were to turn with him, neither of them 
 felt like having a real celebration. And so they had 
 never had a wedding trip. Now they were to make 
 up for that deficiency. Jeannette had suggested the 
 idea, but J. W. had not been slow in giving it his 
 approval. 
 
 For months now J. W. had been on the road, with 
 only brief intervals at home, while Jeannette had 
 "stayed by the stuff," and, though she would not say so, 
 had at times been very lonesome indeed. It hardly 
 seemed as though she had a husband ; he was away so 
 continuously. She was not so anxious to take a trip
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 151 
 
 as she was to get J. W. away where she could have him 
 to herself for a little while. To J. W. she had said, 
 "You see we are free to go now. We may never get 
 so good an opportunity again." 
 
 Decision having been reached that they go some 
 where, J. W. suggested New York city as a destina 
 tion. "Every one has to see New York sooner or 
 later," he laughed, "and we might as well do it 
 sooner." 
 
 After a few days at home, days of much planning 
 and some packing, they were ready to start. Jeannette 
 had arranged the trip so that the last half of it might 
 be taken by daylight, and the afternoon of the second 
 day found them following swiftly the course of the 
 broad Hudson, with the imposing Palisades rising 
 from the opposite bank. Jeannette recalled the words 
 of Washington Irving in "Rip Van Winkle," in which 
 he speaks of "The lordly Hudson, moving on its silent 
 but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple 
 cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there 
 sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in 
 the blue highlands." 
 
 "Irving had the poetry of it right, anyway," she 
 said, turning to J. W., "but the bosom of the Hudson 
 is a busier place to-day than it was in Irving's time." 
 
 "It surely is," said J. W. "I wonder what he would 
 think to see it now." 
 
 A little later it became apparent even to the uniniti 
 ated that the train was entering New York. Tall build 
 ings and other unmistakable signs began to appear, and
 
 152 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 Jeannette had settled herself for her first view of the 
 heart of the city, when suddenly the train disappeared 
 under ground and New York vanished from view. 
 Some miles further on they came to a stop, still under 
 ground. Jeannette and J. W. followed the crowd into 
 the station, and J. W. said, "This is no place for an 
 amateur to try to find his way around at this time of 
 day. We'd better just take a taxi to our hotel, and then 
 we won't get lost. We're on our wedding trip anyway, 
 and I think we deserve that much." 
 
 And so in the dusk of the evening they drove to the 
 hotel. It wasn't the biggest or the most expensive 
 place in the city, but it was bigger than anything of 
 the sort which Jeannette had ever seen. It made her 
 feel very small indeed. She wondered if everyone 
 knew that she and J. W. were from a small town in 
 the Middle West, and she wondered whether she 
 would ever be able to find her own way around the hotel 
 alone, to say nothing of the great city outside. 
 
 In the days which followed, Jeannette and J. W. 
 gave themselves up with enthusiasm to sight-seeing. 
 They found that New York wasn't such a difficult place 
 to get around in after all, and each night they were 
 able to check off a number of things from the list of 
 those which they had hoped to "do" while in the city. 
 They rode to the top of the highest building, and there, 
 with many others, enjoyed a view the like of which 
 J. W. said everybody knew could not be found any 
 where else in the world. They rode on the subway, 
 and counted it no special pleasure. They looked out
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 153 
 
 upon the Statue of Liberty. They visited Ellis Island, 
 and saw thousands of immigrants file in for examina 
 tion. They went to all the show places : Central Park, 
 the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Natural 
 History, the Public Library, Chinatown, the East Side, 
 and the other regulation "sights." 
 
 Incidentally they were much impressed with what 
 they saw and with what they learned about the daily 
 life of a great city. J. W. learned that the subways, 
 elevated, and surface lines of Greater New York car 
 ried twice as many passengers every day as all of the 
 railroads in the United States combined. He was told 
 that a child was born in the city every six minutes, that 
 a wedding took place every thirteen minutes, and that 
 a funeral was held every fourteen minutes. He dis 
 covered that a new building was erected every fifty- 
 one minutes, that a fire occurred every thirty minutes. 
 He found that hundreds of people come to New York 
 every day to live, and that he and Jeannette were only 
 two of some thirty-five million transients who visit 
 New York every year. He figured this meant that 
 every three years New York entertained approximately 
 as many people as the entire population of the United 
 States. He was amazed to learn that nearly eight out 
 of every ten of the residents of New York were either 
 foreign-born or the children of foreign-born parents, 
 and equally surprised to know that New York had the 
 largest Negro population of any city in the United 
 States. 
 
 This latter fact, coming on top of his recent interest
 
 154 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 in the Negro, impressed J. W. considerably. He knew 
 that Negroes had been coming North, but he was 
 hardly prepared for the statement that New York had 
 more Negroes than any city in the South. That night 
 he engaged the Negro waiter in conversation, asking 
 him, among other questions, "Where do most of the 
 Negroes in New York live ?" 
 
 "Oh, in different parts of the city," said the waiter, 
 "but mostly up in Harlem. There's plenty of them up 
 there, you'll find." 
 
 That night J. W. said to Jeannette, "Ever since we 
 have been here in New York we have been doing the 
 things that we set down in the list to do before we left 
 home. Everybody does them. I propose that we do 
 something different to-morrow. You know when I 
 was down in the South I got very much interested in 
 the Negro. I used to write you a lot about what I was 
 seeing and hearing. Now here we are, right in the 
 heart of the biggest Negro city in the United States 
 and, for all I know, the biggest Negro city in the 
 world. How would it do for us to go up to Harlem 
 to-morrow morning and spend a few hours just looking 
 around ? We might not see anything worth while, but, 
 then again, we might." 
 
 "That's just the thing," said Jeannette, both because 
 she really thought so and also because she found con 
 siderable pleasure in doing the things that J. W. really 
 wanted to do. 
 
 So Jeannette and J. W. found themselves on the 
 subway the following forenoon, en route to Harlem,
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 155 
 
 wherever that might prove to be. Neither of them had 
 a very clear idea of directions when traveling under 
 ground, but they could ask questions. They changed 
 cars twice on the way, and J. W. observed to Jeannette 
 that he was sure they must be on the right road, for 
 the number of Negroes among the passengers increased 
 each time. At last they came to the station for which 
 they were making, and stepped out upon the subway 
 platform. 
 
 "Just notice," said J. W., drawing Jeannette to one 
 side, "we are the only white people getting off this 
 train." 
 
 "I believe you are right," said Jeannette, and then 
 she counted while nearly forty colored persons passed 
 through the gates, with not a white person among 
 them. 
 
 "We must have struck the right place," said J. W., 
 as they walked up the stairs to the sunlight. 
 
 "Well, did you ever see anything like this?" said 
 Jeannette, as they stepped out upon the sidewalk. 
 "Would you imagine that we were in the same city 
 which we left hardly more than twenty minutes ago ?" 
 
 It did require a slight stretch of the imagination to 
 make the picture which greeted their eyes fit into their 
 first-acquired conception of New York. The most 
 casual glance revealed to them Negroes everywhere, 
 and of many descriptions. There were Negro news 
 boys and Negro pedestrians on the street, Negro shop 
 keepers of many sorts in front of their places of busi 
 ness, waiting on Negro customers. In the center of the
 
 156 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 street was a tall Negro policeman, directing the street 
 traffic. 
 
 Jeannette and J. W. stepped to the curbing and stood 
 looking about them, considering what they would do. 
 Directly across the corner stood a large structure of 
 numerous stories, which had some of the marks of a 
 public school building. "Let's go across and look in," 
 said J. W. 
 
 "You are the guide of this expedition," said Jean 
 nette. "I'll follow where you lead." 
 
 J. W. had expected to get a glimpse through the win 
 dow and pass on, but they were met at the entrance by 
 two pupils, wearing badges which seemed to indicate 
 that they were members of some sort of a reception 
 committee. "Won't you come right in?" said one of 
 the boys. 
 
 Jeannette and J. W. hesitated. 
 
 "You're quite welcome," continued the boy. "This 
 is Visitor's week,' and you may go anywhere you 
 choose." 
 
 J. W., ever ready for a new experience, smiled and 
 said, "Thank you, I believe we will come in." 
 
 "Just follow me," said the boy, and Jeannette and 
 J. W. followed. 
 
 The next thirty minutes were highly interesting. 
 Their guide's mind was active, and he told them many 
 things about the school and about "visitor's week." 
 "You see," he said, "this is a special week. We have 
 different guides every day, and the pupils who stand 
 best in their classes get to be guides. We enjoy it, and
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 157 
 
 think it is quite an honor. If you would like, we will 
 begin here in the kindergarten, and then go on through 
 the different rooms." 
 
 And so they went from room to room. There were 
 little girls and boys busy with handwork in the kinder 
 garten, and in other rooms classes of about forty or 
 fifty pupils each, engaged in the study of arithmetic, 
 language, geography, spelling, drawing, physiology, 
 and other subjects. 
 
 "You surely have a large school here," remarked 
 J. W. "How many pupils?" 
 
 "We have about twenty-five hundred pupils," said 
 the guide. 
 
 "Is it entirely a Negro school?" asked J. W. 
 
 "No, not entirely," answered the boy. "We have 
 quite a number of white pupils, a few in almost every 
 room, but you see this neighborhood is pretty well given 
 over to Negroes now. 
 
 "This," said the guide, interrupting himself, "is the 
 principal's office. Come in and meet our principal." 
 
 J. W. and Jeannette were ushered into the princi 
 pal's office, where they were greeted by a pleasant- 
 voiced man who seemed really glad to see them. 
 
 "Our guide here is a good one," said J. W. "He has 
 not only shown us through the building, but has told 
 us many things about the school." 
 
 "That's part of our 'visitor's week,' which is being 
 observed in all the schools of the city. Of course we 
 try to select our best pupils for guides," the principal 
 added, as he dismissed the boy.
 
 158 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "Are there any other schools for Negroes as large as 
 this one in the city?" inquired J. W. 
 
 "I believe we have a larger proportion of colored 
 pupils than any other school in the city," said the prin 
 cipal. "You noticed that we have only boys, except 
 in the lowest grades, where we have a few girls. There 
 is a girls' school up the street about two blocks which 
 has just about as large an enrollment as this school, 
 but only about seventy-five or eighty per cent of the 
 pupils are Negroes. I imagine it is one of the largest 
 schools for Negro girls in the United States, even then. 
 There are some interesting facts about that school too. 
 It has one of the finest school buildings you are likely 
 to find anywhere. A few years ago it was almost as 
 'exclusive' as a private school, for this was one of the 
 best residence sections. The very large influx of Ne 
 groes into the city in recent years has changed all that. 
 There are several schools around here now which have 
 a very substantial proportion of Negro pupils, but I 
 believe none has so many as we have here." 
 
 "Do you meet any special problems in this school 
 that would not be found in other schools in the city?" 
 said J. W. 
 
 "Yes, we do have some special problems, particularly 
 with the new arrivals from the South," said the prin 
 cipal. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that there are still some Ne 
 groes coming North ?" said J. W. "I thought they came 
 only during the recent war." 
 
 "Oh, no; they are coming all the time," said the prin-
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 159 
 
 cipal, "and so many children are here without their 
 parents. They live with 'aunts/ or 'uncles,' or 
 'cousins,' or just neighbors. Their parents send them 
 North in order that they may get the advantage of the 
 schools up here, and the relatives with whom they are 
 supposed to stay don't always pay proper attention to 
 them. They suffer considerably for lack of home dis 
 cipline. Then, too, we have the problem of the older 
 pupil who has never had much chance to go to school, 
 and who has to begin, therefore, practically at the bot 
 tom. We are forced to organize special classes for 
 such pupils." 
 
 "Do you think these pupils learn as fast as white pu 
 pils do?" 
 
 "Oh, they learn all right," said the principal. "I 
 haven't noticed much difference there, particularly 
 when the home conditions are satisfactory." 
 J. W. thought they should be going. 
 "We mustn't take any more of your time," he said. 
 "Don't worry about time," said the principal. "We 
 are glad to talk with those who are interested in what 
 we are doing, and this week particularly we are giving 
 visitors the right of way. It's just about time, however, 
 for our fire drill. Perhaps you would like to go down 
 to the street and watch the pupils come out." 
 
 "Oh, yes ; I've always wanted to see a fire drill," said 
 Jeannette. 
 
 The principal went with them, and they had no 
 sooner reached the sidewalk than the gong sounded. 
 Almost immediately, it seemed, the lines of children
 
 160 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 began to appear. One line turned to the right and the 
 other to the left. And they kept coming. Jeannette 
 wondered if some were not going back and coming out 
 a second time, like the "Roman Army" in the high 
 school pageant at home, but not so. When the last 
 child was out, she turned to view the long lines of pu 
 pils stretching far in either direction. 
 
 "That was worth seeing," she said, her eyes aglow, 
 as they bade the principal good-by, "and we thank you 
 for your courtesy to us. We shall always remember 
 this morning." 
 
 The tourists from Delafield walked slowly for several 
 blocks, and, as they walked, each helped the other to 
 see whatever was to be seen. They passed motion 
 picture theaters evidently patronized by Negroes ; more 
 schoolhouses ; beautiful churches which J. W. was sure 
 were Negro churches; a fine new Negro Y. M. C. A. 
 building. At length they came to a neat library build 
 ing. 
 
 "I wonder if this is for Negroes too," said Jeannette. 
 
 "We can very soon find out, if questions will do it," 
 said J. W. as he took Jeannette by the arm and started 
 up the steps to the building. 
 
 To J. W.'s questionings the young woman at the 
 desk replied, "Well, the library is for the community, 
 and, since the community is now mostly colored, I 
 suppose you might say it is for Negroes. In fact, 
 most of the people who use the building are Negroes, 
 as you can see by looking about you now. We are try 
 ing to make the library of use to the people. An ex-
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 161 
 
 hibit of Negro art has just ended. If you had been 
 here yesterday, you might have seen it, but I am afraid 
 you are too late now. We secured the exhibits from a 
 good many different sources, and we kept them on dis 
 play for several months. I think it was a good thing 
 for our constituency. The newspapers gave the ex 
 hibit quite a little publicity, and many visitors came to 
 see it." 
 
 "We are glad to know there was such an exhibit, 
 even if we cannot see it," said J. W., and they thanked 
 the young woman and turned to go. 
 
 "We surely have seen variety enough this morning," 
 said Jeannette, as they came out upon the street. "But 
 I believe we ought to begin to think about getting back 
 to the hotel." 
 
 "All right, we'll go now," said J. W. "First let me 
 speak to this Negro policeman on the corner." 
 
 "Pardon me," said J. W., as he approached the man 
 in uniform, "can you tell me the best way to get down 
 town from here?" 
 
 "Yes," said the man. "Take the subway on this side 
 of the street at the next corner." 
 
 Now, J. W. had been fairly well aware of the lo 
 cation of the subway station before he asked, but he 
 had wanted to get a little closer view of this colored 
 officer, as well as to see him in action, so he said, 
 "They keep you rather busy here on this corner, don't 
 they?" 
 
 "Yes, we have plenty of traffic," said the officer, as 
 he signaled to several waiting automobiles to proceed.
 
 162 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "I'm from the Middle West, where we don't often 
 see a Negro policeman," said J. W. 
 
 "No, there aren't so many of them in the country, 
 I guess," said the man, "but we have them here, and 
 they have some in Chicago. I imagine there are some 
 in some other cities, but I don't know." 
 
 "Do Negroes in New York hold any other city 
 positions?" asked J. W. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the Negro. "But we are proudest 
 of our two Negro aldermen. We didn't elect politi 
 cians, but we selected two professional men who had 
 never been in politics, and then we went to them and 
 told them they would have to accept, and, if I do say it, 
 you would not find it easy to pick out members of the 
 Board of Aldermen better educated, or more highly 
 cultured, than our men. They rank well with most of 
 the other members." 
 
 "I'm glad to hear it," said J. W. "That's one way 
 to better city government. It looks to me as though 
 you had a rather prosperous and contented Negro 
 colony here," said J. W. 
 
 "Yes, we are getting along quite well," said the 
 Negro, smiling, "quite well; though you may suppose 
 we could do better." 
 
 "I am sorry that we didn't get to see what the Meth 
 odist Church is doing up there," said J. W. to Jean- 
 nette, after they were seated in the subway train. "But 
 I guess we will have to let that go until our next trip," 
 he laughed. "It must have been quite a strain on the 
 resources of our Board of Home Missions and Church
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 163 
 
 Extension to have so many Negroes come North all at 
 one time, if any effort was made to take care of our 
 share of them. You couldn't get very far here with the 
 kind of church that only costs a few hundred dollars. 
 In the first place, the city wouldn't let you build such a 
 building if you wanted to, and, in the second place, it 
 wouldn't reach the people, even if you built it. You 
 would have to have a real church or none at all." 
 
 That evening, as J. W. was glancing through the 
 paper his eye was attracted to a bold headline which 
 read: 
 
 $400,000 NEGRO CHURCH 
 
 SAINT MARK'S TO BE THE MOST PRETENTIOUS CHURCH FOR THE 
 RACE IN THE CITY 
 
 Plans were filed yesterday for what will be the most preten 
 tious church for Negroes on Manhattan Island. It will be erected 
 on the block bounded by Saint Nicholas and Edgecombe Avenues, 
 i37th and I38th Streets. The building will cost $400,000. It 
 will be the new home of Saint Mark's Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, which for many years has occupied the edifice 231 West 
 53d Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. 
 
 The new building will be three stories in height, with a parish 
 house fronting on Saint Nicholas Avenue. Sibley and Feather- 
 stone are the architects. The Rev. William H. Brooks is the 
 pastor. 
 
 "There you have it," said J. W., turning to Jean- 
 nette, "just what I was thinking. And now I remember 
 reading in one of the church papers some time ago about 
 this church. I believe it is the leading Methodist Epis 
 copal church for Negroes in the city, but they have been 
 located downtown, and now most of their people are
 
 164 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 living up in Harlem, miles from the church. If I re 
 member correctly, the members of the congregation 
 had at that time pledged something over one hundred 
 thousand dollars for the new building, and that was 
 some time ago. I imagine the Board of Home Mis 
 sions and Church Extension is helping too. It's proba 
 bly one of thousands of projects which we have been 
 giving to through our Centenary offerings. I am glad 
 that they are going to do a good job while they are at 
 it. The church that gets anywhere must do its work 
 in a worthy and dignified way to-day, and especially 
 so among the Negroes. I have seen so many cheap 
 churches lately, which had no facilities for special re 
 ligious, educational, club work, or other community 
 service that I feel like giving three cheers for anybody 
 who has courage and faith enough to go at the task 
 in a big way." 
 
 "I agree with you on the question of churches," said 
 Jeannette, "but just now it seems to me that we are 
 wasting perfectly good time. Here we are in New 
 York, and in a few days we shall be gone. Is there 
 any reason that we should not take a walk along 'the 
 Great White Way'? Everybody talks about it, and 
 from the glimpse we had of it last night, certainly no 
 other street has so many electric lights at work all at 
 one time. What do you say?" 
 
 "As usual, just what you say," laughingly replied 
 J. W. "If it's a walk, I'm for it. Perhaps we'll get to 
 see that much-talked-about Methodist church which is 
 ninety-nine steps from Broadway."
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 165 
 
 "I'll trust you to find it, if it's a church," said Jean- 
 nette. "It ought not to be too difficult. Hasn't it a 
 conspicuous electric sign? Something like that is 
 needed to remind a lot of people that the church is 
 still on the job, even here in this great city." 
 
 And Jeannette and J. W. set out to enjoy the sensa 
 tions of an evening walk along one of the most famous 
 streets in the world. But that's not a part of this 
 story. 
 
 The next day they passed into the great railroad 
 terminal to begin the trip home. Jeannette avowed 
 that it had been a perfectly wonderful experience, but 
 she also confessed that she was ready to get back to 
 Delafield, which, everything considered, had some ad 
 vantages as a place of permanent residence even when 
 compared with New York. 
 
 On the way home they stopped off for a day at Chi 
 cago, where a college friend of J. W.'s undertook to 
 "show them the town." They rode through some of 
 the beautiful parks; they saw the tall "gum tower" on 
 the drive, which J. W. thought did pretty well as an 
 isolated specimen, but which in his judgment was not 
 quite up to New York; they visited "the pier," which 
 Jeannette admitted was big enough, even though she 
 could never remember whether she was supposed to 
 call it the "million dollar pier" or the "five million dol 
 lar pier" ; and they lunched at a great department store 
 down in what every one insisted on calling the "loop." 
 
 In the afternoon they headed with a friend for an 
 other part of town. The way led them through streets
 
 166 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 which reminded J. W. so much of Harlem that he said 
 as much to Jeannette. 
 
 "Yes," said their guide, "this entire section of the 
 city is now given over to Negroes. Chicago has had 
 more than its share of the Exodus. Miles and miles of 
 houses which a few years ago were occupied by white 
 families now all are occupied by Negroes. Some of 
 them are very beautiful places too. This church here 
 that we are now passing," he continued, "was a few 
 years ago a Methodist Episcopal church for white 
 people. It is still a Methodist Episcopal church, but the 
 complexion of the preacher and the members of the con 
 gregation has changed entirely. Three years ago that 
 congregation was meeting in an old store building so 
 small that three men could span it. Now the people 
 fill this great auditorium every Sunday." 
 
 "I suppose they have had to organize some new 
 churches to accommodate the newcomers?" said J. W. 
 
 "They have, indeed," said his friend. "I wish I 
 could tell you how many Methodist Episcopal churches 
 have been organized for Negroes in and about this 
 city during the last few years, to say nothing of those 
 of other denominations. It has been a fine thing, the 
 way the church has come to care for these people since 
 they turned up here, strangers in a strange land. In 
 the case of the Methodists it was the Centenary pro 
 gram which made it possible for the church to get hold 
 of them before they drifted away from the church 
 altogether." 
 
 "I suppose," said J. W., speaking to Jeannette as
 
 A DELAYED WEDDING TRIP 167 
 
 well as their guide, "that we could find situations much 
 like what we have seen in New York and here in a good 
 many other cities in the North. Most Americans do not 
 realize what a shift in Negro population has taken place 
 in the last few years, nor how much it is going to affect 
 our national life from now on." 
 
 "That's very true," said Jeannette. "We are all so 
 busy with our own affairs that we don't pay much at 
 tention to what other people are doing, particularly 
 when those other people happen to be of another race. 
 I guess, though, we will have plenty of things to tell the 
 Epworth League about the Negro question when we 
 get home. Don't you think so, J. W. ?" 
 
 Of course J. W. thought so, and, with that matter 
 settled, the little party of three took a few more notes. 
 
 The following day Jeannette and J. W. reached 
 Delafield their first homecoming together since they 
 were married ; and home never seemed quite so welcome 
 before. It seemed to Jeannette that they had been gone 
 at least a month, and, although she had enjoyed every 
 minute of the trip, she was happy to be at home once 
 more, to don her apron and take possession of the 
 kitchen, and to drop back into the sense of security and 
 peace which only a real home can offer.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 
 
 DURING the months following the New York trip 
 J. W. was much away from Delafield, but when sum 
 mer came he arranged to be at home for a time. It 
 gave him a chance to get into touch once more with 
 things which were going on in Delafield. He spent 
 much of the day at the John W. Farwell store, helping 
 his father, and he also devoted a good deal of time to 
 Jeannette. Besides, he found opportunity to do many 
 other things which his extended absences from Dela 
 field had previously made impossible. 
 
 For one thing he had his first real chance to get 
 acquainted with the new Methodist pastor, the Rev. 
 Conrad Schuster. He came to be very fond of the 
 minister. He discovered, incidentally, that Mr. 
 Schuster had not failed in his promise that he would 
 stand by the program of interracial cooperation which 
 J. W. had been instrumental in getting started in Dela 
 field. Due to the wise and tactful leadership of the 
 new minister, the work had been maintained, and there 
 were some really tangible results to show for the quiet 
 efforts which had been put forward. Not the least im 
 portant of these was the growing confidence and mutual 
 
 .168
 
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 AN EVENT AND A VISION 169 
 
 understanding between the leaders of the two races in 
 the community. Of course J. W. was pleased to hear 
 of all that had been done, and he discovered that he 
 had much in common with this alert young man who 
 had come to Delafield to take up the work which Pas 
 tor Drury had been forced to lay down. 
 
 To J. W. it was also a source of delight that he now 
 had opportunity to renew those long visits with Pas 
 tor Drury which had been interrupted during the 
 months of absence from Delafield. And it was no less 
 a delight to Walter Drury. That wise man listened 
 eagerly to J. W.'s accounts of his business trips, to the 
 humorous incidents of the road, to the description of 
 the schools and churches which J. W. had visited, to 
 the report of conversations which J. W. had had with 
 Negroes of many sorts, and to the recital of experiences 
 on the trip to New York and Chicago. Out of his long 
 observation and wide reading Pastor Drury was able 
 to bring many points of view to supplement J. W.'s 
 impressions, and to interpret the things which he had 
 seen and heard. 
 
 It was during one of these visits, which seemed to 
 come around almost inevitably to the discussion of the 
 Negro and his future in America, that J. W. said: 
 "Well, my respect for the Negro has increased enor 
 mously during the past year. There are still multi 
 tudes of very ignorant and very degraded Negroes, 
 but what you have said about the progress that the race 
 has made in the last half century being almost past 
 belief is true. I'm not much of a history expert, but
 
 i;o J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 I don't recall any period of similar length in the record 
 of our own race when it ever made such rapid progress. 
 And yet, after all is said and done, I would not like to 
 be a Negro." 
 
 "Why is that?" said Pastor Drury, as usual ready to 
 lead J. W. on a little further. 
 
 "Think of what it would mean," continued J. W. 
 "In the first place, I would have to give up my job. 
 My firm wouldn't have me, and, if they were willing, 
 how would I get along traveling? I couldn't get into 
 a Pullman car. If I went to a good hotel to register, 
 I would be told that the rooms were all taken. Of 
 course I could travel in the Negro coach, and sit up 
 all night, and I could get along on cold lunches and 
 other makeshifts, but it would be pretty desperate 
 work. Then, even if I could get a hearing at all, I 
 would be obliged to sell goods cheaper than anyone 
 else, or give some other big inducement which would 
 ruin the business, in order to sell any goods at all. If 
 I wanted to get an education, I would find that some of 
 the best schools were closed to me, and if I wanted to 
 vote, the chances are that I would not be permitted to 
 do so. I should have to choose my life work from a 
 limited list of those callings which are open to Negroes, 
 or else undertake to make my way under handicaps 
 which would practically doom me to failure from the 
 beginning." 
 
 "That's rather a gloomy picture," said Pastor Drury. 
 
 "Yes, it is," continued J. W., "but, after all, there's 
 a sort of silver lining to this cloud. I think things are
 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 171 
 
 steadily growing better, even if it seems to the eager 
 black man that progress is slow. All our talk about 
 freedom and democracy and other high ideals during 
 the past few years hasn't gone for nothing. We have 
 proclaimed those principles throughout the world, and, 
 sooner or later, our self-respect is going to force us to 
 put them more into operation right here at home, even 
 if our sense of justice and fair play doesn't. And I 
 have a good deal of faith in the fairness of the Amer 
 ican people, when they once squarely face an issue. I 
 just don't believe that they have seen this one quite 
 in its full light yet." 
 
 "What do you think of this much-discussed 'social 
 equality'?" asked Pastor Drury. 
 
 "Frankly," said J. W., "I don't know what they are 
 talking about. If what they really mean is intermar 
 riage between the races, why don't they say so, rather 
 than use the ambiguous phrase, 'social equality'?" he 
 continued. "It seems as though I have been asked a 
 hundred times whether I wanted to have my sister 
 marry a 'nigger.' Of course I don't want her to marry 
 a Negro. I don't want her to marry a Chinese, and 
 yet the Chinese people had a well-developed culture 
 thousands of years ago, while my ancestors were still 
 barbarians. I don't want her to marry a Japanese, and 
 yet the Japanese are among the keenest and the best- 
 mannered people in the world. On the other hand, I 
 don't know that I care for any law to keep her from 
 doing these things. I am willing to trust the good 
 sense of American girls on this point."
 
 172 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 "I agree with you," said Pastor Drury. "It always 
 seemed to me that 'social equality' was a matter which 
 would take care of itself without our worrying about 
 it, and I haven't discovered any facts yet to make me 
 change my mind." 
 
 This was not the only conversation on the subject 
 between Pastor Drury and J. W., and they always came 
 to somewhat optimistic conclusions. Pastor Drury 
 rejoiced as he saw J. W.'s convictions deepen and his 
 sense of responsibility for the application of the prin 
 ciples of Christianity to practical affairs become more 
 vivid. 
 
 J. W. had time also to drop in occasionally to see 
 the Rev. Alexander Driver. He found that they were 
 of the same mind in many things, and he never came 
 away without feeling that he had learned something. 
 In turn he hoped that the Negro pastor benefited by 
 the interchange of ideas which these occasions af 
 forded. 
 
 During one of these calls Mr. Driver suggested that 
 J. W. come down to Saint Mark's some Sunday and 
 tell something of what he had seen of the work of the 
 church among the Negroes in the South and of his ex 
 periences in New York and Chicago. J. W. consented, 
 and the following Sunday morning he was greeted by 
 a congregation which filled the church to the doors. 
 Facing such a congregation was a new experience for 
 J. W., and he was a little nervous as to the outcome, 
 but, after he had begun to speak, he forgot all about 
 himself, and for forty-five minutes he told of the
 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 173 
 
 needs and the achievements of the Negro and of his 
 hopes for the race in America. 
 
 It was something new, likewise, for the congregation, 
 and the people listened intently to this interpretation 
 by one of another race of their own hopes and aspira 
 tions. Many came forward to greet J. W. after the 
 service, and to express the satisfaction with which 
 they had listened to his message. The preacher told 
 him that the occasion had meant more to his people 
 than J. W. would ever realize. 
 
 To Jeannette, J. W. said when he got home, "I know 
 I am no orator, but I had something to say to those 
 people this morning, and I enjoyed saying it. I think 
 possibly they enjoyed it too. I am glad he asked me to 
 come, and I am glad I went, even though I did have to 
 work rather hard to get ready, and was pretty well 
 scared when I got there." 
 
 During these days Jeannette and J. W. managed to 
 take many quiet drives into the country. Sometimes 
 they carried a lunch, sought a shady spot, and there 
 over a small fire fried bacon and made coffee. More 
 often, however, they managed to get around to "the 
 old farm" about meal time, for they were well aware 
 that there was no shortage of food in Mother Shenk's 
 larder, and that even though their arrival was not 
 heralded in advance, it would be no trouble to find a 
 little refreshment. 
 
 Sometimes they would wander back through the pas 
 ture to the brook which twisted and turned and doubled 
 on itself in its careless effort to flow across the farm.
 
 174 J- W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 Then Jeannette would seat herself in the shade of a 
 tree with a book or magazine, or more frequently with 
 a bag of sewing at her side, and J. W. would cut a fish 
 ing pole, as he used to do as a boy, and, with an im 
 provised line, hook and bait, would try to lure an un 
 suspecting trout from his lair. He wasn't often suc 
 cessful, for trout were not nearly so plentiful as they 
 had been in the days of his youth, but, as he remem 
 bered, fishing did not necessarily mean catching fish, 
 and his poor luck did not mar his enjoyment. To the 
 two young people these days were times that were sure 
 to become treasured memories to be looked back upon 
 with increasing pleasure and deepening satisfaction as 
 the years passed. 
 
 Two days they spent with "Marty," Jeannette's 
 brother and J. W.'s boyhood and college chum. In his 
 rural parish he was known, of course, as the Rev. Mar 
 tin Luther Shenk, but "Marty" was good enough for 
 these three chums. He had been married a short time 
 previously to Alma Wetherell, a friend of both Jean 
 nette and J. W., so that their visit developed into quite 
 a reunion. 
 
 A long letter had just come from Joe and Marcia 
 Carbrook, who had gone out as missionaries to China 
 and were enthusiastically giving themselves to the work 
 there. The letter brought back memories of many 
 other Delafield young people who had grown up with 
 them and had now gone out into life. Most of them 
 they had never heard from directly, but some way 
 they had that persistent /though usually mistaken feel-
 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 175 
 
 ing that, if the old friends should all drop in upon them 
 suddenly, they could at once pick up the threads of 
 friendship which their separation had caused to be 
 severed. However, they realized that they were no 
 longer irresponsible youngsters taxing the patience of 
 their elders, but that the years which had passed had 
 placed upon their shoulders, without their conscious 
 seeking, the responsibilities of maturity. 
 
 J. W. could see that Marty had developed consider 
 ably since he had seen him, and Marty insisted that his 
 marriage had not only made him a better preacher but 
 had also given him quite a new standing in the commu 
 nity. Alma laughed at this, but she was too wise to deny 
 it. At any rate the work was going well, and Marty's 
 enthusiasm for it was stronger than ever. He was a 
 country boy, he said. He believed in the country, and 
 he was going to stick to it. He had no idea of using 
 this country work as a stepping-stone to a city job. 
 He was a country preacher for life, and he was re 
 solved to do the best piece of work that it was possible 
 to do in the country. 
 
 J. W. noted that Marty's library was rich in new 
 books on the work of the rural church, and he smiled 
 as he said to himself, and later to Jeannette: "I guess 
 Marty will be able to take care of himself all right. 
 He's got the stuff in him, and he's started on the right 
 track." 
 
 As the weeks passed, the J. W. and Jeannette auto 
 mobile trips became shorter and fewer. Occasionally 
 the two went for short walks, but Jeannette spent most
 
 176 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 of her time at home sewing and sewing and planning 
 and planning. She was getting ready for a great event, 
 and she was happy and content. 
 
 In the early fall a white-capped nurse appeared at 
 the house, and a few days later the doctor was hastily 
 summoned. J. W., distressed with his helplessness, 
 tried not to be in the way, and as no one seemed to have 
 anything for him to do, he just waited. In due time 
 came the word which has thrilled the hearts of mil 
 lions in like circumstances, but which refuses to grow 
 old with use : "It's a boy." 
 
 In the days that followed J. W. found he could make 
 himself useful once more. He reveled in the humblest 
 tasks which were assigned to him, and while at work 
 he dreamed dreams such as he had never dreamed be 
 fore. He didn't know much about babies, but everyone 
 told him the baby was perfect, and, although he 
 thought it wiser not to say so to anyone, he was se 
 cretly convinced that there never could have been so 
 remarkable a child before. 
 
 It was too weeks after the wonderful event. Jean- 
 nette, wrapped in a soft robe, sat in a comfortable 
 chair in front of the fire, which J. W. had kindled for 
 her benefit. J. W. was on a rug at her side. A door 
 opened. The nurse stepped into the\room. She placed 
 the baby in Jeannette's arms and withdrew. The 
 scene was one for an artist ; it always is. But no artist 
 could picture or poet voice the emotions that were 
 surging through the hearts of the actors in it. J. W. 
 knew that his eyes were moist, and he could find no
 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 177 
 
 words to express the feelings that welled up within 
 him. Words were not needed, for he understood ; and 
 Jeannette, glancing at his face, understood too. 
 
 Thus they sat in silence for some time. Then J. W. 
 spoke softly. "Jean," he said, using the particular pet 
 name that he loved best, "these have been wonderful 
 weeks to me. I thought I had lived before, but, now, 
 someway, it seems as though I had just begun to live. 
 I feel as I imagine the men of old used to feel after 
 they had had one of those mountain-top experiences. 
 I have been thinking about you and about our boy. 
 You know and I know that he is the most wonderful 
 boy in the whole world. We want him to grow up 
 strong and well, to get a good education, to have a 
 thorough religious training, and to have in every re 
 spect just the best possible chance to make the most of 
 himself. And the beauty of it is that so far as we 
 can see there is no reason why he should not have 
 practically all of the things we want him to have. 
 
 "But do you know what came into my mind right 
 away? Probably it was because of my experiences 
 this past year, but I couldn't help thinking that proba 
 bly every father feels very much as I have been feel 
 ing. And that means the fathers of the red babies, 
 the brown babies, the yellow babies, and the black 
 babies babies of every color God has seen fit to use 
 for babies' complexions. 
 
 "And, when you come to think of it, it's surprising 
 how many colored babies there are in the world. I 
 was figuring up, and at least two thirds of the people
 
 178 J. W. THINKS BLACK 
 
 of the world are colored. That means that at least two 
 thirds of the babies of the world are colored. Some 
 times we get the idea that the white babies are the 
 only ones that really count, but you remember what 
 Abraham Lincoln said about the common people, 'God 
 must have loved them, he made so many of them/ 
 Isn't just that thing true about the colored babies? 
 
 "It's made me just a little ashamed of myself and of 
 my country, as I have realized in the last few days how 
 we place such serious handicaps on their little shoul 
 ders, not because of anything they have done, but be 
 cause of the color which God has given them. There's 
 something in it all that makes me want to do my utmost 
 to bring in the day when God's children of every color 
 shall really have a fair chance at all the high privileges 
 of life. And, if I do not live to see that day ushered in, 
 I hope that our boy will grow up to carry on the work 
 that we must leave undone." 
 
 This time it was Jeannette's eyes that were filled 
 with tears. She knew that J. W. was still on the moun 
 tain top, and that he was speaking with unusual feeling. 
 Her heart was touched, but what she thought was 
 something that did not need to be talked about. In 
 stead she reached over and patted J. W.'s arm, and he 
 knew that she understood. 
 
 That night as J. W. knelt by his bedside he prayed, 
 briefly but earnestly, in words that were full of new 
 meaning to himself : 
 
 "O Lord, thou hast been very good to me. Every 
 thing that I could have desired thou hast supplied a
 
 AN EVENT AND A VISION 179 
 
 good home, good parents, abundance of food, an edu 
 cation, the best wife in the world, and the most wonder 
 ful boy. And in return I have been a fool. I ask thy 
 forgiveness. Now I know how childish, how absurd, 
 and how unfair much of my thinking has been. Thou 
 art a better God than I have been willing to believe. 
 I know now that thou lovest all thy children with a 
 father's love, and that thou hast thine own reasons for 
 making them of many colors. Forgive my foolish, 
 bigoted, and unjustified pride and make me humble 
 and teachable. Help me in the future to do justly, to 
 love mercy and to walk humbly with thee. Amen." 
 
 And then J. W. rose from his knees, and slept. He 
 would be ready for the morning, bringing with it that 
 perennial miracle of a loving Father a new day with 
 its uncharted and unexplored possibilities and oppor 
 tunities.
 
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