-fashioned. Let the mill-hands have the offices. What good will it
do?"

"What good! Why, they'll do as they please with us."

"Bosh! Don't we own the mill? Can't we keep wages where we like by
threatening to bring in nigger labor?"

"No, you can't, permanently," Maxwell disputed, "for they sometime will
call your bluff."

"Let 'em call," said Taylor, "and we'll put niggers in the mills."

"What!" ejaculated the landlords in chorus. Only Maxwell was silent.
"And kill the plantation system?"

"Oh, maybe some time, of course. But not for years; not until you've
made your pile. You don't really expect to keep the darkies down
forever, do you?"

"No, I don't," Maxwell slowly admitted. "This system can't last
always--sometimes I think it can't last long. It's wrong, through and
through. It's built on ignorance, theft, and force, and I wish to God we
had courage enough to overthrow it and take the consequences. I wish it
was possible to be a Southerner and a Christian and an honest man, to
treat niggers and dagoes and white trash like men, and be big enough to
say, 'To Hell with consequences!'"

Colonel Cresswell stared at his neighbor, speechless with bewilderment
and outraged traditions. Such unbelievable heresy from a Northerner or a
Negro would have been natural; but from a Southerner whose father had
owned five hundred slaves--it was incredible! The other landlords
scarcely listened; they were dogged and impatient and they could suggest
no remedy. They could only blame the mill for their troubles.

John Taylor left the conference blithely. "No," he said to the
committee from the new mill-workers' union. "Can't raise wages,
gentlemen, and can't lessen hours. Mill is just started and not yet
paying expenses. You're getting better wages than you ever got. If you
don't want to work, quit. There are plenty of others, white and black,
who want your jobs."

The mention of black people as competitors for wages was like a red rag
to a bull. The laborers got together and at the next election they made
a clean sweep, judge, sheriff, two members of the legislature, and the
registrars of votes. Undoubtedly the following year they would capture
Harry Cresswell's seat in Congress.

The result was curious. From two sides, from landlord and white laborer,
came renewed oppression of black men. The laborers found that their
political power gave them little economic advantage as long as the
threatening cloud of Negro competiti