“The South has been voiceless in these later years,” he went on, “her voice has been drowned in a din of cat-calls from an army of cheap scribblers and demagogues. But when these children we are rearing down here grow, rocked in their cradles of poverty, nurtured in the fierce struggle to save the life of a mighty race, they will find speech, and their songs will fill the world with pathos and power. “I’ve studied your great cities. Believe me the South is worth saving. Against the possible day when a flood of foreign anarchy threatens the foundations of the Republic and men shall laugh at the faiths of your fathers, and undigested wealth beyond the dreams of avarice rots your society, until it mocks at honour, love and God--against that day we will preserve the South!” The Preacher’s voice was now vibrating with deep feeling, and the deacon listened with breathless interest. “Believe me, deacon, the ark of the covenant of American ideals rests to-day on the Appalachian Mountain range of the South. When your metropolitan mobs shall knock at the doors of your life and demand the reason of your existence, from these poverty-stricken homes, with their old-fashioned, perhaps mediaeval ideas, will come forth the fierce athletic sons and sweet-voiced daughters in whom the nation will find a new birth!” The Preacher’s eyes had filled with tears and his voice dropped into a low dream-like prophecy. “You can not understand,” he resumed, in a clear voice, “why I feel so profoundly depressed just now because the Republican party, which, with you stands for the virtue, wealth and intelligence of the community, is now in charge of this state. I will tell you why. A Republican administration in North Carolina simply means a Negro oligarchy. The state is now being debauched and degraded by this fact in the innermost depths of its character and life. My place is here in this fight.” “But, Doctor, will not your industrial training of the Negro gradually minimise any danger to your society?” “No, it will gradually increase it. Industrial training gives power. If the Negro ever becomes a serious competitor of the white labourer in the industries of the South, the white man will kill him, just as your labour Unions do in the North now where the conditions of life are hard, and men fight with tooth and nail for bread. If you train the negroes to be scientific farmers they will become a race of aristocrats, and when five generations removed from the memory of slavery, a war of races will be inevitable, unless the Anglo-Saxon grant this trained and wealthy African equal social rights. The Anglo-Saxon can not do this without suicide. One drop of Negro blood makes a negro.” “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Doctor, that I can’t persuade you to become our pastor. But I can understand since this talk something of the larger views of your duty.” The deacon sought Mrs. Durham that evening and laid siege to her resolutely.