"There at least do not lack others who are of that belief. But why?" "They told me in the West that the South has over three million slaves. They told me that the labor of more than seven million persons, black and white, is controlled by less than a third of a million men; and of all that third of a million, less than eight thousand practically represent the owners of these blacks, who do not vote. Gentlemen, I have been interested in the cause of democracy in Europe--I do not deny it--yet it seems to me an oligarchy and not a democracy which exists in the American South. The conflict between an oligarchy and a natural democracy is ages old. It does not die. It seems to me that there is the end of all compromise--in the renewed struggle of men, all over the world, to set up an actual government of their own,--not an oligarchy, not a monarchy, not of property and wealth, but of actual democracy. It must come, here, some day." "It is unusual, my dear lady, to find one of your sex disposed to philosophy so deep and clear as your own. You please us. Will you go on?" "Sir, your courtesy gives me additional courage,". was her answer. "You have asked me for my beliefs--and I do not deny that I have some of my own, some I have sought to put in practice. To me, another phase of this question lies in something which the South itself seems not to have remembered. The South figures that the cost of a laboring man, a slave, is perhaps a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars. The South pays the cost of rearing that man. Any nation pays the cost of bringing up a human being. Yet, within this very year, Europe has sent into the North and into the West a third of a million of men _already_ reared, already _paid_ for. Sir, you ask me what will be the result of this discontent, the result of this compromise. It seems to me plainly written in those two facts--industrial, not political facts. The 'finality' of this compromise, its final issue, will be established by conditions with which laws or their enforcement have little to do. Yet statesmen try to solve such a question by politics. I myself at one time thought it could endure--but only if all the blacks were bought, paid for and deported, to make room for those who come at no cost to us. I thought for a time it could be done. I have tried to do it. I have failed. I do not think others will follow in my attempt." "We have not undervalued, Madam, either the brilliance or the profundity of your own active intellect! What you say is of interest. We already have followed with profound interest your efforts. Your words here justify our concern in meeting you. This is perhaps the first time in our history when a woman has been asked to meet those most concerned in even so informal an assemblage as this, at precisely this place."