CHAPTER SEVEN

"_It All Falls Right Back on Society_"

"Two Negroes killed yesterday in the city, is the homicide record for this town, which makes thirteen killed in the last week," said Wilson Jacobs the following morning, as he laid the paper down to take up his knife at breakfast. "Every day, at least, it is almost every day, there is a murder of each other by our people in this town. Saturday night or Sunday usually sees four or five such crimes."

"Isn't it deplorable?" breathed Mildred, seating herself at the other side. "What accounts, Mr. Reverend"--she somehow found it awkward to call him Reverend--"Jacobs, for such acts, that is, such is to be expected; but why does there happen to be so much of it here?"

"Ignorance--lack of intelligence in our people. This city has a preponderance of ignorant, polluted people among the Negroes. They flock into this town from all around, and represent the low, polluted, and depraved element of our race. They settle about the levee district, spend their earnings for the worst whiskey, give the remainder of their time to gambling and all forms of vice, and murder is the natural consequence."

"Is there no way, there are so many churches, it would seem that so many places of worship would have a good effect upon these people?" said the other anxiously.

"More than a hundred Negro churches in this town; but they are, for the most part, churches only. Seventy of these are Baptist, and they are building more right along."

"I meet it every day in my work," she said. "Always so many apparently good women, mothers and daughters, sisters, who say: 'I sho would lak t' have that book, but y' see, it's lak this. We's building a new chu'ch; or, a rally is on next Sunday, 'n' all the women is axed t' give five dollars 'n' the men ten,' etc. and etc. But that is not the most I hear; it is: 'Lawd, Lawd, honey, yu' sweet li'l chile. I sho is sorry to disappint you. I sho is. You walkin' way up heh 'n' bringin' tha' book; but don' you know, honey, that low down nigga man a mine went off Sat'dy night un got drunk, got t' fightin' and was 'rested. I did'n' pay no 'tention when 'e did'n' show up a-Sat'dy night; nor was I wo'ied Sunday; but when Monday mawnin' come 'n' no nigga, den I knowed de p'lice done got dat nigga. And dey had, Sat'dy night fo' fightin' 'n' 'sturbin de peace. So I done took yo' money, honey, 'n' got dat nigga out. 'n' now, honey, I jes' cain' say when I'll be ready, 'cause 'e done lost his job, too, so that means I gotta take ceh' a both uv us.'"

"If we allow our minds to dwell too long on it, frankly, Miss Latham," said he, "we will become discouraged. Where ignorance is bliss, it may be folly to be wise; but it is unprofitable, from a moral point of view. So, as long as we have a preponderance of ignorance, just so long are we going to have a dreadful homicide record in this, and other towns."

"I read an editorial in the paper recently, with regard to murder and the record per city," said Miss Latham. "I see that the south leads. And this town and Effingham seem to struggle for the lead of them all. It was not decided as to which had the most, but it stated that more people were murdered in either one of them than in any other city in the world, regardless of population."

"And that is not all. In both of these cities, no data is kept of the number the police kill. I know policemen personally, and see them on duty, who have killed as many as half a dozen Negroes."

"Oh, be merciful!" she cried. "Can this really be so?"

"It _is_ so," he maintained. "Why last week I stopped a few days in Effingham on the way from Attalia, and read on the front page of one of the leading papers, and which was accompanied by a cut, that an old policeman, who had seen twenty-five years on the force, and who had recently been made a captain, had never killed a man. It was this fact, obviously, that was the most extraordinary."

"Cannot the city government do more toward the suppression of so much crime?" she asked, forgetting to eat her breakfast.

"They cannot to any great extent, because it is the task of society. The very foundation upon which this crime rests, is due to ignorance on the part of the masses. You cannot reason with a mind that has no training. Have you ever seen it that way?" he asked, more serious now than she had ever seen him before, notwithstanding he was a serious person.

She nodded.

"No one can, the law of the land cannot. It all falls right back on society." He was too serious now for a time to say anything, and he ate his meal with his face contracted in serious thought. Presently he said: "I am a minister of the gospel, and have the highest regard for the Presbyterian faith; but, honestly, when I see the Baptists with their loose system, keeping the black population that make up their body, and with little, almost no effort whatever toward the education of the children, and when I see still further, the Methodists with their better system, in that they are not held back so much by 'splitters,' I sometimes regret that the world took Martin Luther seriously. For, say what they will, the conduct of the Catholics in regard to the children, marriage and divorce, has an encouraging result in our civic life."

"I believe that if there were a Christian movement here as there is in the northern cities, Y.M.C.A. and libraries, and if those who are leaders of the race would encourage the patronage of these places, eventually, it would result to the public's good," she said, after some thought.

"Only one place in the south, as yet, seems to be making any effort along such Christian lines. And you would not believe it, but the greatest barrier to this has been the preachers. In their church effort, they have the people fairly well under control, but to their own end. In Attalia, they have almost come to appreciate the fact, that a more intelligent and cleaner populace reacts to the welfare of the church. Everything seems favorable toward getting one."

"I am sure that would make a great difference in time," said she, heartily. "In Cincinnati, they expect to begin one soon. They have almost all the subscriptions in now." She was silent for a time, and then pursued: "Do you not think such a movement could be stimulated here?"

"Not at the present, I think, regardless of the great need of one, and of the great good it could do. It will be some time before the preachers would come to lend their support--in fact, I do not think it could be expected until they have been shown, in a majority, that such would react for the good of all."

"Oh, my!" cried Constance, entering at this moment, "you two appear to have worked yourself into a frenzy of excitement." She surveyed both, questioningly.

"We have," her brother replied.