Mr. Claude Spelling, a scared-looking little brown man with big ears, who held the exalted office of president of the Society of Negro Merchants, added his volume of blues to the discussion. The refrain was that Negro business—always anemic—was about to pass out entirely through lack of patronage. Mr. Spelling had for many years been the leading advocate of the strange doctrine that an underpaid Negro worker should go out of his way to patronize a little dingy Negro store instead of going to a cheaper and cleaner chain store, all for the dubious satisfaction of helping Negro merchants grow wealthy.
The next speaker, Dr. Joseph Bonds, a little rat-faced Negro with protruding teeth stained by countless plugs of chewing tobacco and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, who headed the Negro Data League, almost cried (which would have been terrible to observe) when he told of the difficulty his workers had encountered in their efforts to persuade retired white capitalists, whose guilty consciences persuaded them to indulge in philanthropy, to give their customary donations to the work. The philanthropists seemed to think, said Dr. Bonds, that since the Negroes were busily solving their difficulties, there was no need for social work among them or any collection of data. He almost sobbed aloud when he described how his collections had fallen from $50,000 a month to less than $1000.
His feeling in the matter could easily be appreciated. He was engaged in a most vital and necessary work: i.e., collecting bales of data to prove satisfactorily to all that more money was needed to collect more data. Most of the data were highly informative, revealing the amazing fact that poor people went to jail oftener than rich ones; that most of the people were not getting enough money for their work; that strangely enough there was some connection between poverty, disease and crime. By establishing these facts with mathematical certitude and illustrating them with elaborate graphs, Dr. Bonds garnered many fat checks. For his people, he said, he wanted work, not charity; but for himself he was always glad to get the charity with as little work as possible. For many years he had succeeded in doing so without any ascertainable benefit accruing to the Negro group.
Dr. Bonds’s show of emotion almost brought the others to tears and many of them muttered “Yes, Brother” while he was talking. The conferees were getting stirred up but it took the next speaker to really get them excited.
When he rose an expectant hush fell over the assemblage. They all knew and respected the Right Reverend Bishop Ezekiel Whooper of the Ethiopian True Faith Wash Foot Methodist Church for three reasons: viz., his church was rich (though the parishioners were poor), he had a very loud voice and the white people praised him. He was sixty, corpulent and an expert at the art of making cuckolds.
“Our loyal and devoted clergy,” he boomed, “are being forced into manual labor and the Negro church is rapidly dying” and then he launched into a violent tirade against Black-No-More and favored any means to put the corporation out of business. In his excitement he blew saliva, waved his long arms, stamped his feet, pummeled the desk, rolled his eyes, knocked down his chair, almost sat on the rug and generally reverted to the antics of Negro bush preachers.
This exhibition proved contagious. Rev. Herbert Gronne, face flushed and shouting amens, marched from one end of the room to the other; Colonel Roberts, looking like an inebriated black-faced comedian, rocked back and forth clapping his hands; the others began to groan and moan. Dr. Napoleon Wellington Jackson, sensing his opportunity, began to sing a spiritual in his rich soprano voice. The others immediately joined him. The very air seemed charged with emotion.
Bishop Whooper was about to start up again, when Dr. Beard, who had sat cold and disdainful through this outbreak of revivalism, toying with his gold-rimmed fountain pen and gazing at the exhibition through half-closed eyelids, interrupted in sharp metallic tones.
“Let’s get down to earth now,” he commanded. “We’ve had enough of this nonsense. We have a resolution here addressed to the Attorney General of the United States demanding that Dr. Crookman and his associates be arrested and their activities stopped at once for the good of both races. All those in favor of this resolution say aye. Contrary? . . . Very well, the ayes have it. . . . Miss Hilton please send off this telegram at once!”
They looked at Dr. Beard and each other in amazement. Several started to meekly protest.
“You gentlemen are all twenty-one, aren’t you?” sneered Beard. “Well, then be men enough to stand by your decision.”
“But Doctor Beard,” objected Rev. Gronne, “isn’t this a rather unusual procedure?”
“Rev. Gronne,” the great man replied, “it’s not near as unusual as Black-No-More. I have probably ruffled your dignity but that’s nothing to what Dr. Crookman will do.”
“I guess you’re right, Beard,” the college president agreed.
“I know it,” snapped the other.
The Honorable Walter Brybe, who had won his exalted position as Attorney General of the United States because of his long and faithful service helping large corporations to circumvent the federal laws, sat at his desk in Washington, D. C. Before him lay the weird resolution from the conference of Negro leaders. He pursed his lips and reached for his private telephone.
“Gorman?” he inquired softly into the receiver. “Is that you?”
“Nossuh,” came the reply, “this heah is Mistah Gay’s valet.”
“Well, call Mister Gay to the telephone at once.”
“Yassuh.”
“That you, Gorman,” asked the chief legal officer of the nation addressing the National Chairman of his party.
“Yeh, what’s up?”
“You heard ’bout this resolution from them niggers in New York, ain’t you? It’s been in all of the papers.”
“Yes I read it.”
“Well, whaddya think we oughtta do about it?”
“Take it easy, Walter. Give ’em the old run around. You know. They ain’t got a thin dime; it’s this other crowd that’s holding the heavy jack. And ’course you know we gotta clean up our deficit. Just lemme work with that Black-No-More crowd. I can talk business with that Johnson fellow.”
“All right, Gorman, I think you’re right, but you don’t want to forget that there’s a whole lot of white sentiment against them coons.”
“Needn’t worry ’bout that,” scoffed Gorman. “There’s no money behind it much and besides it’s in states we can’t carry anyhow. Go ahead; stall them New York niggers off. You’re a lawyer, you can always find a reason.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Gorman,” said the Attorney General, hanging up the receiver.
He pressed a button on his desk and a young girl, armed with pencil and pad, came in.
“Take this letter,” he ordered: “To Doctor Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard (what a hell of a name!), Chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Negro Racial Integrity, 1400 Broadway, New York City.
“My dear Dr. Beard:
The Attorney General has received the solution signed by yourself and others and given it careful consideration.
Regardless of personal views in the matter (I don’t give a damn whether they turn white or not, myself) it is not possible for the Department of Justice to interfere with a legitimate business enterprise so long as its methods are within the law. The corporation in question has violated no federal statute and hence there is not the slightest ground for interfering with its activities.
Very truly yours,
WALTER BRYBE.
“Get that off at once. Give out copies to the press. That’s all.”
—
Santop Licorice, founder and leader of the Back-to-Africa Society, read the reply of the Attorney General to the Negro leaders with much malicious satisfaction. He laid aside his morning paper, pulled a fat cigar from a box nearby, lit it and blew clouds of smoke above his woolly head. He was always delighted when Dr. Beard met with any sort of rebuff or embarrassment. He was doubly p
leased in this instance because he had been overlooked in the sending out of invitations to Negro leaders to join the Committee for the Preservation of Negro Racial Integrity. It was outrageous, after all the talking he had done in favor of Negro racial integrity.
Mr. Licorice for some fifteen years had been very profitably advocating the emigration of all the American Negroes to Africa. He had not, of course, gone there himself and had not the slightest intention of going so far from the fleshpots, but he told the other Negroes to go. Naturally the first step in their going was to join his society by paying five dollars a year for membership, ten dollars for a gold, green and purple robe and silver-colored helmet that together cost two dollars and a half, contributing five dollars to the Santop Licorice Defense Fund (there was a perpetual defense fund because Licorice was perpetually in the courts for fraud of some kind), and buying shares at five dollars each in the Royal Black Steamship Company, for obviously one could not get to Africa without a ship and Negroes ought to travel on Negro-owned and operated ships. The ships were Santop’s especial pride. True, they had never been to Africa, had never had but one cargo and that, being gin, was half consumed by the unpaid and thirsty crew before the vessel was saved by the Coast Guard, but they had cost more than anything else the Back-To-Africa Society had purchased even though they were worthless except as scrap iron. Mr. Licorice, who was known by his followers as Provisional President of Africa, Admiral of the African Navy, Field Marshal of the African Army and Knight Commander of the Nile, had a genius for being stuck with junk by crafty salesmen. White men only needed to tell him that he was shrewder than white men and he would immediately reach for a check book.
But there was little reaching for check books in his office nowadays. He had been as hard hit as the other Negroes. Why should anybody in the Negro race want to go back to Africa at a cost of five hundred dollars for passage when they could stay in America and get white for fifty dollars? Mr. Licorice saw the point but instead of scuttling back to Demerara from whence he had come to save his race from oppression, he had hung on in the hope that the activities of Black-No-More, Incorporated, would be stopped. In the meantime, he had continued to attempt to save the Negroes by vigorously attacking all of the other Negro organizations and at the same time preaching racial solidarity and coöperation in his weekly newspaper, “The African Abroad,” which was printed by white folks and had until a year ago been full of skin-whitening and hair-straightening advertisements.
“How is our treasury?” he yelled back through the dingy suite of offices to his bookkeeper, a pretty mulatto.
“What treasury?” she asked in mock surprise.
“Why, I thought we had seventy-five dollars,” he blurted.
“We did, but the Sheriff got most of it yesterday or we wouldn’t be in here today.”
“Huumn! Well, that’s bad. And tomorrow’s pay day, isn’t it?”
“Why bring that up?” she sneered. “I’d forgotten all about it.”
“Haven’t we got enough for me to get to Atlanta?” Licorice inquired, anxiously.
“There is if you’re gonna hitch-hike.”
“Well, of course, I couldn’t do that,” he smiled deprecatingly.
“I should say not,” she retorted, surveying his 250-pound, five-feet-six-inches of black blubber.
“Call Western Union,” he commanded.
“What with?”
“Over the telephone, of course, Miss Hall,” he explained.
“If you can get anything over that telephone you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
“Has the service been discontinued, young lady?”
“Try and get a number,” she chirped. He gazed ruefully at the telephone.
“Is there anything we can sell?” asked the bewildered Licorice.
“Yeah, if you can get the Sheriff to take off his attachments.”
“That’s right, I had forgotten.”
“You would.”
“Please be more respectful, Miss Hall,” he snapped. “Somebody might overhear you and tell my wife.”
“Which one?” she mocked.
“Shut up,” he blurted, touched in a tender spot, “and try to figure out some way for us to get hold of some money.”
“You must think I’m Einstein,” she said, coming up and perching herself on the edge of his desk.
“Well, if we don’t get some operating expenses I won’t be able to obtain money to pay your salary,” he warned.
“The old songs are the best songs,” she wisecracked.
“Oh, come now, Violet,” he remonstrated, pawing her buttock, “let’s be serious.”
“After all these years!” she declared, switching away.
In desperation, he eased his bulk out of the creaking swivel chair, reached for his hat and overcoat and shuffled out of the office. He walked to the curb to hail a taxicab but reconsidered when he recalled that a worn half-dollar was the extent of his funds. Sighing heavily, he trudged the two blocks to the telegraph office and sent a long day letter to Henry Givens, Imperial Grand Wizard of the Knights of Nordica—collect.
“Well, have you figured it out?” asked Violet when he barged into his office again.
“Yes, I just sent a wire to Givens,” he replied.
“But he’s a nigger-hater, isn’t he?” was her surprised comment.
“You want your salary, don’t you?” he inquired archly.
“I have for the past month.”
“Well, then, don’t ask foolish questions,” he snapped.
SIX
Two important events took place on Easter Sunday, 1934. The first was a huge mass meeting in the brand-new reinforced concrete auditorium of the Knights of Nordica for the double purpose of celebrating the first anniversary of the militant secret society and the winning of the millionth member. The second event was the wedding of Helen Givens and Matthew Fisher, Grand Exalted Giraw of the Knights of Nordica.
Rev. Givens, the Imperial Grand Wizard of the order, had never regretted that he had taken Fisher into the order and made him his right-hand man. The membership had grown by leaps and bounds, the treasury was bursting with money in spite of the Wizard’s constant misappropriation of funds, the regalia factory was running night and day and the influence of the order was becoming so great that Rev. Givens was beginning to dream of a berth in the White House or nearby.
For over six months the order had been publishing The Warning, an eight-page newspaper carrying lurid red headlines and poorly-drawn quarterpage cartoons, and edited by Matthew. The noble Southern working people purchased it eagerly, devouring and believing every word in it. Matthew, in 14-point, one-syllable word editorials, painted terrifying pictures of the menace confronting white supremacy and the utter necessity of crushing it. Very cleverly he linked up the Pope, the Yellow Peril, the Alien Invasion and Foreign Entanglements with Black-No-More as devices of the Devil. He wrote with such blunt sincerity that sometimes he almost persuaded himself that it was all true.
As the money flowed in, Matthew’s fame as a great organizer spread throughout the Southland, and he suddenly became the most desirable catch in the section. Beautiful women literally threw themselves at his feet, and, as a former Negro and thus well versed in the technique of amour, he availed himself of all offerings that caught his fancy.
At the same time he was a frequent visitor to the Givens home, especially when Mrs. Givens, whom he heartily detested, was away. From the very first Helen had been impressed by Matthew. She had always longed for the companionship of an educated man, a scientist, a man of literary ability. Matthew to her mind embodied all of these. She only hesitated to accept his first offer of marriage two days after they met because she saw no indication that he had much, if any, money. She softened toward him as the Knights of Nordica treasury grew; and when he was able to boast of a million-dollar bank account, she agreed to ma
rriage and accepted his ardent embraces in the meantime.
And so, before the yelling multitude of night-gowned Knights, they were united in holy wedlock on the stage of the new auditorium. Both, being newlyweds, were happy. Helen had secured the kind of husband she wanted, except that she regretted his association with what she called low-brows; while Matthew had won the girl of his dreams and was thoroughly satisfied, except for a slight regret that her grotesque mother wasn’t dead and some disappointment that his spouse was so much more ignorant than she was beautiful.
As soon as Matthew had helped to get the Knights of Nordica well under way with enough money flowing in to satisfy the avaricious Rev. Givens, he had begun to study ways and means of making some money on the side. He had power, influence and prestige and he intended to make good use of them. So he had obtained audiences individually with several of the leading business men of the Georgia capital.
He always prefaced his proposition by pointing out that the working people were never so contented, profits never so high and the erection of new factories in the city never so intensive; that the continued prosperity of Atlanta and of the entire South depended upon keeping labor free from Bolshevism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, trade unionism and other subversive movements. Such un-American philosophies, he insisted, had ruined European countries and from their outposts in New York and other Northern cities were sending emissaries to seek a foothold in the South and plant the germ of discontent. When this happened, he warned gloomily, then farewell to high profits and contented labor. He showed copies of books and pamphlets which he had ordered from radical book stores in New York but which he asserted were being distributed to the prospect’s employees.
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