Black No More

by George S. Schuyler

  TEN

  Hank Johnson, Chuck Foster, Dr. Crookman and Gorman Gay, National Chairman of the Republican National Committee, sat in the physician’s hotel suite conversing in low tones.

  “We’re having a tough time getting ready for the fall campaign,” said Gay. “Unfortunately our friends are not contributing with their accustomed liberality.”

  “Can’t complain about us, can you?” asked Foster.

  “No, no,” the politician denied quickly. “You have been most liberal in the past two years, but then we have done many favors for you, too.”

  “Yuh sho right, Gay,” Hank remarked. “Dem crackahs mighta put us outa business efen it hadn’ bin fo’ the’ admin’strations suppo’t.”

  “I’m quite sure we deeply appreciate the many favors we’ve received from the present administration,” added Dr. Crookman.

  “We won’t need it much longer, though,” said Chuck Foster.

  “How’s that?” asked Gay, opening his half-closed eyes.

  “Well, we’ve done about all the business we can do in this country. Practically all of the Negroes are white except a couple of thousand diehards and those in institutions,” Chuck informed him.

  “Dat’s right,” said Hank. “An’ it sho makes dis heah country lonesome. Ah ain’t seen a brownskin ooman in so long Ah doan know what Ah’d do if Ah seen one.”

  “That’s right, Gay,” added Dr. Crookman. “We’ve about cleaned up the Negro problem in this country. Next week we’re closing all except five of our sanitariums.”

  “Well, what about your lying-in hospitals?” asked Gay.

  “Of course we’ll have to continue operating them,” Crookman replied. “The women would be in an awful fix if we didn’t.”

  “Now look here,” proposed Gay, drawing closer to them and lowering his voice. “This coming campaign is going to be one of the bitterest in the history of this country. I fear there will be rioting, shooting and killing. Those hospitals cannot be closed without tremendous mental suffering to the womanhood of the country. We want to avoid that and you want to avoid it, too. Yet, these hospitals will constantly be in danger. It ought to be worth something to you to have them especially protected by the forces of the government.”

  “You would do that anyway, wouldn’t you Gay?” asked Crookman.

  “Well, it’s going to cost us millions of votes to do it, and the members of the National Executive Committee seem to feel that you ought to make a very liberal donation to the campaign fund to make up for the votes we’ll lose.”

  “What would you call a liberal donation?” Crookman inquired.

  “A successful campaign cannot be fought this year,” Gay replied, “under twenty millions.”

  “Man,” shouted Hank, “yuh ain’t talkin’ ’bout dollahs, is yuh?”

  “You got it right, Hank,” answered the National Chairman. “It’ll cost that much and maybe more.”

  “Where do you expect to get all of that money?” queried Foster.

  “That’s just what’s worrying us,” Gay replied, “and that’s why I’m here. You fellows are rolling in wealth and we need your help. In the past two years you’ve collected around ninety million dollars from the Negro public. Why not give us a good break? You won’t miss five million, and it ought to be worth it to you fellows to defeat the Democrats.”

  “Five millions! Great Day,” Hank exploded. “Man, is you los’ yo’ min’?”

  “Not at all,” Gay denied. “Might as well own up that if we don’t get a contribution of about that size from you we’re liable to lose this election. . . . Come on, fellows, don’t be so tight. Of course, you’re setting pretty and all you’ve got to do is change your residence to Europe or some other place if things don’t run smoothly in America, but you want to think of those poor women with their black babies. What will they do if you fellows leave the country or if the Democrats win and you have to close all of your places?”

  “That’s right, Chief,” Foster observed. “You can’t let the women down.”

  “Yeah,” said Johnson. “Give ’im the jack.”

  “Well, suppose we do?” concluded Crookman, smiling.

  The National Chairman was delighted. “When can we collect?” he asked, “and how?”

  “Tomorrow, if yuh really wants it then,” Johnson observed.

  “Now remember,” warned Gay. “We cannot afford to let it be known that we are getting such a large sum from any one person or corporation.”

  “That’s your lookout,” said the physician, indifferently. “You know we won’t say anything.”

  Mr. Gay, shortly afterward, departed to carry the happy news to the National Executive Committee, then in session right there in New York City.

  The Republicans certainly needed plenty of money to re-elect President Goosie. The frequent radio addresses of Rev. Givens, the growing numbers of the Knights of Nordica, the inexplicable affluence of the Democratic Party and the vitriolic articles in The Warning had not failed to rouse much Democratic sentiment. People were not exactly for the Democrats but they were against the Republicans. As early as May it did not seem possible for the Republicans to carry a single Southern state and many of the Northern and Eastern strongholds were in doubt. The Democrats seemed to have everything their way. Indeed, they were so confident of success that they were already counting the spoils.

  When the Democratic Convention met in Jackson, Mississippi, on July 1, 1936, political wiseacres claimed that for the first time in history the whole program was cut and dried and would be run off smoothly and swiftly. Such, however, was not the case. The unusually hot sun, coupled with the enormous quantities of liquor vended, besides the many conflicting interests present, soon brought dissension.

  Shortly after the keynote speech had been delivered by Senator Kretin, the Anglo-Saxon crowd let it be known that they wanted some distinguished Southerner like Arthur Snobbcraft nominated for the Presidency. The Knights of Nordica were intent on nominating Imperial Grand Wizard Givens. The Northern faction of the party, now reduced to a small minority in party councils, was holding out for former Governor Grogan of Massachusetts, who as head of the League of Catholic Voters had a great following.

  Through twenty ballots the voting proceeded, and it remained deadlocked. No faction would yield. Leaders saw that there had to be a compromise. They retired to a suite on the top floor of the Judge Lynch Hotel. There, in their shirt sleeves, with collars open, mint juleps on the table and electric fans stirring up the hot air, they got down to business. Twelve hours later they were still there.

  Matthew, wilted, worn but determined, fought for his chief. Simeon Dump of the Anglo-Saxon Association swore he would not withdraw the name of Arthur Snobbcraft. Rev. John Whiffle, a power in the party, gulped drink after drink, kept dabbing a damp handkerchief at the shining surface of his skull, and held out for one Bishop Belch. Moses Lejewski of New York argued obstinately for the nomination of Governor Grogan.

  In the meantime the delegates, having left the ovenlike convention hall, either lay panting and drinking in their rooms, sat in the hotel lobbies discussing the deadlock or cruised the streets in automobiles confidently seeking the dens of iniquity which they had been told were eager to lure them into sin.

  When the clock struck three, Matthew rose and suggested that since the Knights of Nordica and the Anglo-Saxon Association were the two most powerful organizations in the party, Givens should get the Presidential nomination, Snobbcraft the Vice-Presidential and the other candidates be assured of cabinet positions. This suggested compromise appealed to no one except Matthew.

  “You people forget,” said Simeon Dump, “that the Anglo-Saxon Association is putting up half the money to finance this campaign.”

  “And you forget,” declared Moses Lejewski, “that we’re supporting your crazy scheme to disfranchise anybody possessing Negro ancestr
y when we get into office. That’s going to cost us millions of votes in the North. You fellows can’t expect to hog everything.”

  “Why not?” challenged Dump. “How could you win without money?”

  “And how,” added Matthew, “can you get anywhere without the Knights of Nordica behind you?”

  “And how,” Rev. Whiffle chimed in, “can you get anywhere without the Fundamentalists and the Drys?”

  At four o’clock they had got no farther than they had been at three. They tried to pick some one not before mentioned, and went over and over the list of eligibles. None was satisfactory. One was too radical, another was too conservative, a third was an atheist, a fourth had once rifled a city treasury, the fifth was of immigrant extraction once removed, a sixth had married a Jewess, a seventh was an intellectual, an eighth had spent too long at Hot Springs trying to cure the syphilis, a ninth was rumored to be part Mexican and a tenth had at one time in his early youth been a Socialist.

  At five o’clock they were desperate, drunk and disgusted. The stuffy room was a litter of discarded collars, cigarette and cigar butts, match stems, heaped ash trays and empty bottles. Matthew drank little and kept insisting on the selection of Rev. Givens. To the sodden and nodding men he painted marvelous pictures of the spoils of office and their excellent chance of getting there, and then suddenly declared that the Knights of Nordica would withdraw unless Givens was nominated. The threat aroused them. They cursed and called it a holdup, but Matthew was adamant. At a last stroke, he rose and pretended to be ready to bolt the caucus. They remonstrated with him and finally gave in to him.

  Orders went out to the delegates. They assembled in the convention hall. The shepherds of the various state flocks cracked the whip and the delegates voted accordingly. Late that afternoon the news went out to a waiting world that the Democrats had nominated Henry Givens for President and Arthur Snobbcraft for Vice-President. Mr. Snobbcraft didn’t like that at all, but it was better than nothing.

  —

  A few days later the Republican convention opened in Chicago. Better disciplined, as usual, than the Democrats, its business proceeded like clockwork. President Goosie was nominated for reëlection on the first ballot and Vice-President Gump was again selected as his running mate. A platform was adopted whose chief characteristic was vagueness. As was customary, it stressed the party’s record in office, except that which was criminal; it denounced fanaticism without being specific, and it emphasized the rights of the individual and the trusts in the same paragraph. As the Democratic slogan was White Supremacy and its platform dwelt largely on the necessity of genealogical investigation, the Republicans adopted the slogan: Personal Liberty and Ancestral Sanctity.

  Dr. Crookman and his associates, listening in on the radio in his suite in the Robin Hood Hotel in New York City, laughed softly as they heard the President deliver his speech of acceptance which ended in the following original manner:

  “And finally, my friends, I can only say that we shall continue in the path of rugged individualism, free from the influence of sinister interests, upholding the finest ideals of honesty, independence and integrity, so that, to quote Abraham Lincoln, ‘This nation of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth.’”

  “That,” said Foster, as the President ceased barking, “sounds almost like the speech of acceptance of Brother Givens that we heard the other day.”

  Dr. Crookman smiled and brushed the ashes off his cigar. “It may even be the same speech,” he suggested.

  —

  Through the hot days of July and August the campaign slowly got under way. Innumerable photographs appeared in the newspapers depicting the rival candidates among the simple folk of some village, helping youngsters to pick cherries, assisting an old woman up a stairway, bathing in the old swimming hole, eating at a barbecue and posing on the rear platforms of special trains.

  Long articles appeared in the Sunday newspapers extolling the simple virtues of the two great men. Both, it seemed, had come from poor but honest families; both were hailed as tried and true friends of the great, common people; both were declared to be ready to give their strength and intellect to America for the next four years. One writer suggested that Givens resembled Lincoln, while another declared that President Goosie’s character was not unlike that of Roosevelt, believing he was paying the former a compliment.

  Rev. Givens told the reporters: “It is my intention, if elected, to carry out the traditional tariff policy of the Democratic Party” (neither he or anyone else knew what that was).

  President Goosie averred again and again, “I intend to make my second term as honest and efficient as my first.” Though a dire threat, this statement was supposed to be a fine promise.

  —

  Meanwhile, Dr. Samuel Buggerie and his operatives were making great headway examining birth and marriage records throughout the United States. Around the middle of September the Board of Directors held a conference at which the learned man presented a partial report.

  “I am now prepared to prove,” gloated the obese statistician, “that fully one-quarter of the people of one Virginia county possess non-white ancestry, Indian or Negro; and we can further prove that all of the Indians on the Atlantic Coast are part Negro. In several counties in widely separated parts of the country, we have found that the ancestry of a considerable percentage of the people is in doubt. There is reason to believe that there are countless numbers of people who ought not to be classed with whites and should not mix with Anglo-Saxons.”

  It was decided that the statistician should get his data in simple form that anyone could read and understand, and have it ready to release just a few days before election. When the people saw how great was the danger from black blood, it was reasoned, they would flock to the Democratic standard and it would be too late for the Republicans to halt the stampede.

  —

  No political campaign in the history of the country had ever been so bitter. On one side were those who were fanatically positive of their pure Caucasian ancestry; on the other side were those who knew themselves to be “impure” white or had reason to suspect it. The former were principally Democratic, the latter Republican. There was another group which was Republican because it felt that a victory for the Democrats might cause another Civil War. The campaign roused acrimonious dispute even within families. Often behind these family rifts lurked the knowledge or suspicion of a dark past.

  As the campaign grew more bitter, denunciations of Dr. Crookman and his activities grew more violent. A move was started to close all of his hospitals. Some wanted them to be closed for all time; others advised their closing for the duration of the campaign. The majority of thinking people (which wasn’t so many) strenuously objected to the proposal.

  “No good purpose will be served by closing these hospitals,” declared the New York Morning Earth. “On the contrary such a step might have tragic results. The Negroes have disappeared into the body of our citizenry, large numbers have intermarried with the whites and the offspring of these marriages are appearing in increasing numbers. Without these hospitals, think how many couples would be estranged; how many homes wrecked! Instead of taking precipitate action, we should be patient and move slowly.”

  Other Northern newspapers assumed an even more friendly attitude, but the press generally followed the crowd, or led it, and in slightly veiled language urged the opponents of Black-No-More to take the law into their hands.

  Finally, emboldened and inflamed by fiery editorials, radio addresses, pamphlets, posters and platform speeches, a mob seeking to protect white womanhood in Cincinnati attacked a Crookman hospital, drove several women into the streets and set fire to the building. A dozen babies were burned to death and others, hastily removed by their mothers, were recognized as mulattoes. The newspapers published names and addresses. Many of the women were very prominent socially either in thei
r own right or because of their husbands.

  The nation was shocked as never before. Republican sentiment began to dwindle. The Republican Executive Committee met and discussed ways and means of combating the trend. Gorman Gay was at his wits’ end. Nothing, he thought, could save them except a miracle.

  Two flights below in a spacious office sat two of the Republican campaigners, Walter Williams and Joseph Bonds, busily engaged in leading the other workers (who knew better) to believe that they were earning the ten dollars a day they were receiving. The former had passed for a Negro for years on the strength of a part-Negro grandparent and then gone back to the white race when the National Social Equality League was forced to cease operations at the insistence of both the sheriff and the landlord. Joseph Bonds, former head of the Negro Data League who had once been a Negro but thanks to Dr. Crookman was now Caucasian and proud of it, had but recently returned to the North from Atlanta, accompanied by Santop Licorice. Both Mr. Williams and Mr. Bonds had been unable to stomach the Democratic crowd and so had fallen in with the Republicans, who were as different from them as one billiard ball from another. The two gentlemen were in low tones discussing the dilemma of the Republicans, while rustling papers to appear busy.