I replied I had thought the highest ideal of patriotism was adherence to measures materially as well as politically that were for the benefit of the whole people. He said: "I know your party preach that they have a monopoly of wisdom; but the fact is the wisest statesmen of the world are divided in opinion as to the benefits claimed for the leading policies of your party. But how do they benefit you, as a dependent class? Your immediate need is employment and good educational facilities. You should be less sentimental and more practical. You may honestly believe in a protective tariff, having for its object the protection of the American working-man, but does it help you when you know that the doors of mills, foundries, and manufactories are shut against you? As to the currency, you are at a disadvantage when you attempt to antagonize the financial views of your employers. "It reminds me of an incident," he continued, "in my native town in Virginia, not long after reconstruction. There had been a drought and short crop, succeeded by a pretty hard winter. My father, whose politics, you may well judge, I being 'a chip of the old block,' without soliciting money or favor, threw open his cellar, wherein was stowed many bushels of sweet potatoes; invited all the destitute to come. It is needless to say they came. In the spring Tobey, the Negro minister of the Baptist Church--a man illiterate, but with much native sense--after morning service, said: 'Brethren, there's gwine to be a 'lection here next week, and I wants you all to vote in de light dat God has gin you to see de light, but I spects to vote wid de taters.' Now, this may seem ludicrous, but Tobey, in that act, was a fit representative of the white man in politics--for every class of American citizens except the Negro divide their vote and put it where to them personally it will do the most good." "Much," I replied, "that you have said is undoubtedly true. But can you wonder at the Negro's cohesion? Is it not a fact that his is the only class of citizens that your party deny equal participation in the franchise, and unjustly discriminate against in the application of the laws? Where better could a change of conduct which you would admire and he so happily embrace, be inaugurated than within your own political household; where could nobility of character be more grandly displayed than by the abolition of these vicious hindrances to the uplifting of the weak and lowly?" "Be that as it may," he replied, "your race is not in a condition to make friends by opposing the prevailing local policies of their environments." I have narrated this interview for the reason that it is a fitting type of the views of friends of the Negro of the South who somehow fail to see the difficulty in his fraternizing with them in the midst of so much political persecution and bodily outrage. I referred in the above interview to an effort of colored leaders to assimilate with Southern politics. CHAPTER XI.