lence.

"Do you regard yourself as having finished?" asked Earl after a few
seconds of silence.

"Sir," he continued, "if in this hour when I am strangled with the ashes
of Bud and Foresta you feed me with a negation----" He did not finish
the sentence.

"I understand you, Earl. I must offset your proposition with a better
one. Foreseeing that you would demand this of me, I have prepared
myself," said Ensal.

Going to his desk he procured a rather bulky document. Ensal turned the
manuscript over and over. In it he had cast all of his soul. Upon it he
was relying for the amelioration of conditions to such an extent that
his race might be saved from being goaded on to an unequal and
disastrous conflict. He hoped that its efficacy would be so self-evident
that Earl might stay the hand that threatened the South and the nation
with another awful convulsion. No wonder that his voice was charged with
deep emotion as he read as follows:

* * * * *

_"To the People of the United States of America:_

"The Anglo-Saxon race is a race of the colder regions and there
evolved those qualities, physical, mental and temperamental,
which constitute its greatness. A large section of the race
has left the habitat and environments in which and because of
which it grew to greatness, and in the southern part of the
United States finds itself confronted with the problem of
maintaining in warmer climes those elements of a greatness
hitherto found only in the colder regions.

"The race in these warmer regions took firm hold of the
doctrine of a foil, a something thrust between itself and the
sapping influences of weather, sun and soil. The Negro was
pressed into service as that foil. He was to stand in the open
and bear the brunt of nature's hammering, while the
Anglo-Saxon, under the shade of tree or on cool veranda, sought
to keep pace with his brother of the more invigorating clime,
counting immunity from the assaults of nature and superior
opportunities for reflection as factors vital to him in the
unequal race that he was to run.

"Not only was this foil deemed necessary to the maintenance of
the intellectual life of the South, but to its commercial well
being as well; for the white man was regarded as
constitutionally unable to furnish the quality of physical
service necessary to extr