ation.

"Perhaps only in the Deep South, as yet protected by the width of the
lower Mississippi, is there something approaching a genuine hope,
although ironically that may be the product of ignorance. Here the
overlords have gone and the poor whites, unsupported by an explicit
kinship, have withdrawn into complete listlessness. Some black men have
fled, but to most the Grass is a mere bogey, incapable of frightening
those who have survived so much. Now, for the first time since 1877 the
polls are open to all and there are again Negro governors, and black
legislatures. And they are legislating as if forever. Farm tenancy has
been abolished, the great plantations have been expropriated and made
cooperative, the Homestead Act of 1862 has been applied in the South and
every citizen is entitled to claim a quartersection. There is a great
deal of laughter at this childish lawmaking, but it goes on, changing
the face of the region, the lawmakers themselves not at all averse to
the joke."

Everything Le ffacase wrote was not only dull, but biased and unjust as
well. It was true capital was leaving the country rapidly, but what
other course had it? To stay and attempt to carry on industry in the
midst of the demoralization was obviously impractical. The plants
remained and when a way was found to conquer the Grass we would be glad
to reopen them, for this would be a practical course, just as the flight
of capital was a practical course; standards of living were now so
reduced in the United States it would be more profitable to employ cheap
American labor than overpaid Latin or European.

_55._ I had now no fixed abode, dividing my time between Rio and Buenos
Aires, Melbourne and Manchester. General Thario and his family lived in
Copenhagen, overseeing our continental properties, now of equal
importance with the South American holdings. Before leaving, and indeed
on every trip back home, he visited his son--no easy thing to do, what
with the young man's constant movement and the extreme difficulty of
going from east to west against the torrent pouring in the opposite
direction. Joe had married the female of the snapshot, or contracted
some sort of permanent alliance with her--I never got it quite straight
and the Tharios were deplorably careless about such details; and she
proved as eccentric as he was. No appeal to selfinterest, no pleading he
forgo his morbid preoccupation with the Grass for the sake of his
family, could