But a stupendous blunder had crept into all these little sums in addition. Looking back calmly upon it now, it seems almost incomprehensible that men familiar with the history of the world could have entertained such delusions. Just think of it. Here was a race of men who, through no fault of their own, had been sunk by slavery and ignorance to a condition but little above that of the brutes, like which they had been bought and sold at auction. They, and their ancestors before them for generations, had been mere chattels, whom it was a grave crime to teach even to read. They were absolutely devoid of the first qualification for participation in the government of a country which had always denied them the right to govern even their own persons. They were viewed, not merely with distrust, but even with violent hostility, by their late masters, who still felt wronged at being dispossessed by the Federal power of what they had been educated to consider as really property as stocks and bonds. They were scarcely better fitted to wield the suffrage than the beasts of the field. And yet they were intrusted with the power, under the law of majorities, to absolutely rule more than one American commonwealth!

The results which followed, at the hands first of the blacks and later of the whites, were horrible; horrible, and yet, the historian will say, in both cases inevitable. The ignorant negroes became, of course, the easy prey of the worst white leaders. The sentiment of the white race being so hostile to the very idea of negro suffrage, but few respectable natives of that race, comparatively speaking, attached themselves to the Republican party. The carpet-baggers, who so largely assumed its command, despite some honorable exceptions, were for the most part unprincipled men, with little honest regard for the interests of either race, but with a strong desire to line their own pockets. The saturnalia of corruption, the carnival of mis rule which followed, constitute the most frightful satire upon popular government ever known. The climax was reached in the black Legislature and "the robber Governor," in South Carolina. It became evident that there must be either a revolution by the white minority, or ruin for whites and blacks alike. A revolution was resolved upon by the whites, and it was carried through. The negroes were intimidated from going to the polls, so far as possible, and when violence did not suffice to keep them away, their ballots were tampered with and neutralized after they had been cast. By force or by fraud the race which possessed in more than one State an actual numerical majority was reduced into an apparent minority. The negro vote was practically suppressed, and the majority ceased to rule.

This result was inevitable. Reconstruction had sought to "put the bottom rail on top," to reverse the highest and lowest strata of society, to place ignorance and poverty in authority over intelligence and property. Such an attempt had never before succeeded in the world's history; it could not have succeeded permanently in the South without destroying civilization. It was from the first only a question how soon and in what way it should be defeated.

Let another truth be told: the same result would have been reached under similar conditions in any

that, although the negroes had lived in the South so long, their admission to the suffrage was like the sudden incorporation into the body politic of a vast foreign element. Suppose that there had been unexpectedly distributed over the State of Massachusetts, on a certain day sixteen years ago, a new body of voters, of an alien race, so immense that it outnumbered the previous wielders of the ballot in the proportion of seven to five, so ignorant that it possessed no conception of its trust, and so inexperienced that it readily followed any demagogue who bid for its support by cultivating the distrust which it naturally felt of the former ruling element. Suppose that the Constitution and laws of the State had never required either an educational or property qualification for the suffrage, so that there was no legal way of preventing this horde of illiterates from casting ballots which they could not read. Suppose that the men who had made the Bay State rich and prosperous discovered all at once that the control of the Legislature, the administration of justice, the fixing of the tax-rate, the appropriation of the public money, the whole government of the commonwealth, had fallen into the hands of this vast aggregation of ignorance. Suppose that there had emerged from this mob and had been attracted from a distant section of the country the worst set of leaders that ever brought disgrace upon representative government. Suppose that corruption and misrule had run riot until the well-being, and even the very existence, of society was threatened. In other words, suppose that Massachusetts had been put in South Carolina's place. Does any intelligent and candid man, born and bred in Massachusetts, doubt that the former residents - the property-holders and taxpayers-would speedily have forgotten old differences, struck hands in defence of their threatened interests, and, minority though they were, have contrived some way to put the majority under their feet?

In short, the South became "solid" because it had to be- that is to say, so far as States with a large negro population were concerned. The negroes proved to be Republicans, as was expected by those who had made them voters. Their treatment by the whites operated to strengthen this tendency. A natural fear of an attempt at their reënslavement, cunningly cultivated by their unprincipled leaders, still further confirmed their opposition to the party which included their old masters. Broadly speaking, the blacks as a class were Republicans. This forced the whites as a class to be Democrats, in order that they might present a "united front." A feeling of sympathy led to a similar union of the whites, more or less complete, in States where the black element was not dangerously large. The hereditary drift in favor of Democracy added the only other element necessary to make the South solid.

How can this solidity be broken? Obviously, only by removing the cause which produced it. That cause was the massing of the negroes in one party. The recollection of negro misrule in South Carolina has hitherto checked an evidently strong tendency among the whites of that State to divide their votes, and has made the race almost unanimous in support of the regular Democratic ticket, although a large element has often at heart opposed it. What was a real danger in a commonwealth where the whites were largely outnumbered by the blacks has been exaggerated out of all reason in States where the negro vote by itself could never threaten white dominance, and the bugbear has hitherto proved terrible enough to maintain Democratic supremacy everywhere.

The way in which this supremacy is to be finally overthrown has already been foreshadowed. Through the last decade, when the Democrats have controlled every Southern State, certain Congressional districts have either remained Republican or have been contested by the two parties on equal terms. Investigation will show the very striking and significant fact that, with two or three exceptions (like the heavily black sections along the coast of the two Carolinas, where the few whites have made no struggle for power), these Republican or doubtful districts have been districts which contained scarcely any blacks. That is to say, Republican representatives have been elected by white Southerners, without any help from black Republicans. Kentucky has always been considered a typical Southern Democratic State; yet in the mountain region which includes its south-eastern counties lies a district which has more often sent a Republican than a Democrat to the national Capitol since the war. In this district the white preponderance is so pronounced that the negroes constitute but a fourteenth of the whole population, which shows that the whites have divided almost equally between the two parties. The tendency, on the other hand, of a large negro element to unite the whites in the party opposed to the blacks may be seen in the same State of Kentucky. Nearer the heart of the commonwealth is a Congressional district where the negroes number nearly half as many souls as the whites, so that anything like such an even division of the whites as exists in the mountains would give the Republicans an overwhelming majority of the voters. But, in point of fact, this district is always strongly Democratic, the presence of the negroes having driven the whites together, and the proportion of the Republican vote to the total poll does not much exceed the proportion of the negro inhabitants to the whole population. Moreover, if the analysis be carried a stage farther, the surprising discovery is made that the only two counties in the mountain district which contain many blacks (in each case a little over a third of the whole population) are both Democratic, although it would take but a bare fourth of the whites to constitute with the blacks a majority of their voters. So strong is the influence of race feeling, even in a section where, for the most part, that issue is not raised.

The mountain country of eastern Tennessee also contains but a small negro element, and here, too, are Congressional districts which the Republicans either carry without difficulty or render always doubtful. The hill country of northern Georgia has a similar population, and here the white opponents of the Bour bon Democracy have repeatedly proved strong enough to elect Independents to Congress with but little help from black voters. The State of West Virginia is a still more conspicuous illustration of the tendency to division among the whites where the race issue is not brought home to them. The blacks here constitute less than five per cent. of the entire population, which is but a trifle larger than the proportion of blacks in New Jersey. The whites divide with apparently little

more regard to the blacks in the Southern than in the Northern State, and Cleveland carried each by a plurality which did not vary far from four thousand.

The reason why this normal and natural division of the whites between the parties exists in West Virginia and in the specified regions of the other States is evidently because in these parts of the South there is no fear of negro rule. It would be ridiculous to prate to the 132,777 male whites in West Virginia about the danger of their race being " dominated" by the 6384 blacks unless they vote the Democratic ticket, and they vote it or not, according as they believe or not in the Democratic party. Even in a State like Georgia, where the negroes stand to the whites in the ratio of five to six, the whites, in counties where they easily control the local administration by reason of the small black population, have not always been held to the support of the Democratic party by the strongest appeals of their white brethren in the black districts.

Obviously, all that is necessary to widen this division among the whites, which is already apparent in a few quarters, is to relieve them everywhere from the fear of negro rule in case they divide. It is useless to ridicule this fear. The fact must be recognized that it exists, and that it is the most potent factor in Southern politics. So long as the whites in South Carolina see the blacks ready to march to the polls in a solid column, and to vote almost as one man against the party which includes nine-tenths of the wealth and intelligence in the community, so long will the whites disregard all ordinary causes for division, and unite for what seems to them-and really is-the protection of the State. The massing of ignorance and poverty under one banner will marshal knowledge and property under another; and there never has been but one issue to such a contest, as there never can be. Each union is abnormal, but the one forces the other. Disintegration of the higher stratum cannot be expected until the lower has begun to split apart. A division of the negro vote is therefore the prerequisite to anything like a general division of the white vote.

Two motives have hitherto conspired to make the negroes Republicans-the two strongest motives which could influence an ignorant and impressible race -gratitude and fear. Gratitude, not only in the shape of thankfulness to the party which had freed and enfranchised them, but as "that lively sense of favors to come " which the traditional promise of "forty acresand a mule" had aroused. Fear, lest the race which had formerly held them in bondage still plotted for their reduction to servitude, and lest the elevation of the Democracy to power in the nation might mean their reënslavement.

Time dulls the edge of gratitude. Young colored men are now coming on the stage of action who were born in freedom, and who recognize no indebtedness to any party for their liberty. The "favors to come" from Republican rule have largely proved illusive. A Republican administration at Washington has practically left the negro in the South to shift for himself. On the other hand, the Democratic State governments have pleasantly disappointed him. The appropriations for schools have, almost without exception, been steadily increased above the amounts provided by Republican legislatures, and his children now have better teachers and longer terms than ten years ago. A distinct advance in kindliness of relations on the part of the white man is already so perceptible as to have favorably affected the negro's sentiment toward him.

The fear of harm from a Federal administration controlled by Democrats has survived. Natural enough in its origin, it has been sedulously cultivated by the leaders of their party as the easiest device for keeping the blacks solid for the Republicans. The support of that party by the negroes has never represented any intelligent acceptance of its principles; it has been only, so far as it was not an expression of gratitude, an attempt to secure a periodical renewal of an insurance policy against apprehended evil. The election of a Democratic President will emancipate the blacks from this nightmare of apprehension. The absurdity of their dread lest they might be put back into slavery by the Democrats will be demonstrated by the one convincing test of experience. A few months will suffice to prove its folly, even to the most timorous.

Freed from this overmastering fear, relieved from the sway of leaders who were for the most part Republicans "for revenue only," the negroes will, for the first time, be governed in casting their ballots by the same motives, good and bad, which sway voters elsewhere. Instead of blindly following some alien Federal office-holder against the whites among whom they live, they will, more or less quickly, come to accept the lead of their white neighbors. The negro already often seeks and follows the advice of his old master as to his material interests. Only the deepseated fear of his master's party has kept him from heeding the white man's suggestions as to his political course. Convince him that the white man means him no harm in his relations as a citizen, and he will soon be ready to accept his leadership in public affairs, as he already often does in private.

Once divide the negro vote, and the "Solid South" is broken. The whites have only been held together by the union of the blacks. The elements of division among the whites already exist, as is clearly seen in West Virginia and parts of several other Southern States. Even now leaders of rival parties, or leaders of rival factions in the same party, divide the votes of whites in the mountain districts, where negroes are scarce; they will do the same thing in the cotton, rice, and sugar sections, where the negroes most abound, as soon as the latter escape from their bondage to a superstition, and are ready to divide their votes also.

Thus at last, for the first time, we shall see parties at the South separated by something else than the race line. This is by no means the same thing as say ing that the South is at once going to become Repub•lican. On the contrary, in most of the cotton States at least there may be, probably will be, at first a temporary depression of the Republican party below even its present weak condition. The Republican Federal office-holders, who have looked after its machinery, will disappear, and the machinery, with nobody paid to keep it in running order, will rust and decay. The blacks, convinced that they can vote the Democratic ticket as safely as the Republican, will be much more likely to do so, as their employers will make it seem for their interest to do so, precisely as Northern employers of white laborers do with their workmen. It will not be strange if next year, and perhaps the year after, the elections in some

"The School of Dishonesty."

IN the "Open Letter" department of THE CENTURY for November there is a contribution entitled, "The School of Dishonesty," which, while containing much that is true, is yet fallacious in that its charges will not admit of a general application, and must necessarily fail to account for the great prevalence of " crime in its multitude of forms."

No; "the primary cause of crime" does not come from mercantile life, which is no more a school of dishonesty than any other branch of labor. In answer to the question as to when the evil-doer first loses his sense of honesty and integrity, Mr. Tyrer says: "If we knew the facts, how often the answer would be: At the time that the offender was first placed in contact with the world, when from one cause or another he was first forced from the care of his parents, and compelled to contend alone for his existence; when he first entered upon his apprenticeship to the merchant, the manufacturer, the professional man, the farmer." In the visible facts of the case this is true, but the evil lies far deeper, and the crimes of dishonesty are but the outward manifestations of a diseased condition of society behind them. It is much like saying the eruptions in measles are the cause of the disease, when they are but the result of forces much deeper.

If the family and social life of the country to-day was what it should be, these outward schools of dishonesty would not exist. Where do the innocent and honest youths, upon whom Mr. Tyrer predicates his argument, come from? Are they the sons of "merchants, manufacturers, professional men, farmers," apprenticeship to whom means moral ruin? Do thistles produce figs?

It seems to me that the American youth of both sexes are trained to a false standard of life, to the accumulation of wealth - the boys to get it, the girls to marry it. This is the teaching of parents in all walks of life, from the cottage of the poor man to the mansion of the already rich. It is the worship of the almighty dollar, the golden calf, which is at the basis of so much crime. The youth goes out into the world "on the make," and the results soon follow. Until the American people live for something besides money, and have some other aim in life, " crime in its multitude of forms" will ever be with us, and laws to "compel men to do an honest business" will not need to be suggested. Statute laws cannot remedy the evil, for there are none to enforce them. The only remedy is the inculcating of a higher standard of life, according to the principles of Christianity; but here the work of the layman ends, and that of the preacher begins.

Yet, if he is he, it also seems to me
He's not illusive!

I'm certain I should know him at a glance.
Most men are stupid.

My faith is shaken;

My foolish hopes are giving way to fears

I must have been mistaken.

And yet, she is a "not impossible she,"

She's very human.

I think she's young; I know she's fancy-free,

And every inch a woman.

I can't describe her, but if I should chance

Or if there is a Cupid!

So either mused; time passed; they did not meet, Though they were living in the self-same street. He to an office went at half-past eight,

Never too early, or a minute late;

And fifteen minutes afterward she went

To the large school where she her mornings spent.
No dream, no vision came to either one;
Their paths kept onward as they had begun
Parallel lines, which never were to meet,
Though but divided by a narrow street.
One eager glance had proven her to be
His sweet, most human, "not impossible she";
One long, shy look from her deep eyes had made
Her heart go singing to him unafraid.
Kingdoms there are for all of us, may be,
But every kingdom opens with a key.

Margaret Vandegrift.