“Yes, that is true,” she said, “but nevertheless I really get considerable recreation in it. I find these people worthy of assistance and competent to fill many places that they otherwise could not but for the help of our Guild.” “So you have found that success does not always come to the worthy,” I suggested, “if those who are worthy have no outside influence? I can remember people who worked hard all their lives for promotion and who not only did not get it, but often witnessed others less skilled and deserving than themselves pushed forward ahead of them. This was especially true of the Negro race in my time. The Negroes were told that Negro ability would sell for as much in the market as white, but while this was encouraging in some respects and true in many cases, it could by no means be laid down as a rule.” “I agree with you,” she said, “in part; for the feeling no doubt prevails among some people that the lines of cleavage should move us naturally to do more for our own than for a different race, and that spirit occasionally crops out, but the spirit of helpfulness to Negroes has now become so popular that it permeates all classes and there is practically no opposition to them.” “You are a long way removed from the South of the past,” said I, “where to have done such work as you are engaged in would have disgraced you, and have branded you for social ostracism.” She replied that there was no criticism at all for engaging in such work but only for doing more for one race than another. “You Georgians had degenerated in my day,” I remarked. “The Southern colonies under such men as Oglethorpe seemed to have higher ideals than had their descendants of later times. Oglethorpe was opposed to slavery and refused to allow it in the Colony of Georgia while he was governor; he was also a friend to the Indians and to Whitfield in his benevolent schemes, but the Georgian of my day was a different character altogether from the Oglethorpe type. He justified slavery and burned Negroes at the stake, and the ‘Cracker class’ were a long ways removed from the Oglethorpe type of citizenship, both in appearance and intelligence. I notice, too, Miss Davis, that you never use the words ‘colored people’ but say ‘Negro,’ instead.” “That is because these people themselves prefer to be called Negroes. They are proud of the term Negro and feel that you are compromising if you refer to them as ‘colored people.’” “That is quite a change, too,” said I, “from the past; for in my time the race did not like the term Negro so well because it sounded so much like ‘nigger,’ which was a term of derision. I notice that this term also has become obsolete with you--another sign of progress. In fact, I fear that the ideas I had in 1906, when I started on my trip to work as a missionary among the Negroes, would be laughed at now, so far have you progressed beyond me. Indeed, I am quite confused at times in trying to conform to my new conditions.”