Proclaims at times,
Through no fault of his,
That for a surety the sins of fathers
Become the heritage of sons
Even to the fourth generation?
Or that murdered chastity,
That ravished motherhood--
So pitiful, so helpless,
Before the white hot,
Lust-fever of the "master"--
Has borne its sure fruit?

You mutter, "There should be no wonder."
Well, somehow, Sir Caucasian,
Perhaps southern gentleman,
I, marked a "whelp," am moved
To prize that muttered admission.

* * * * *

But listen, please:
The wonder is--the greater one--
That from Lexington to San Juan hill
Disloyalty never smirched
His garments, nor civic wrangle
Nor revolutionary ebullition
Marked him its follower.

A "striker"? Yes!
But he struck the insurgent
And raised the flag.

An ingrate?
Treacherous?
A violator?
When--oh, spectacle that moved the world!
For five bloody years
Of fratricidal strife--
Red days when brothers warred--
He fed the babe,
Shielded the mother.
Guarded the doorsill
Of a million southern homes?

Penniless when freedom came? Most true;
But his accumulations of fifty years
Could finance a group of principalities.

Homeless? Yes; but the cabin and the hut
Of Lincoln's day--uncover at that name!--
Are memories; the mansion of today,
Dowered with culture and refinement,
Sweetened by clean lives,
Is a fact.

Unlettered? Yes;
But the alumni of his schools,
Triumphant over the handicap
Of "previous condition,"
Are to be found the world over
In every assemblage inspired
By the democracy of letters.

In the casting up what appears?
The progeny of lust and helplessness,
He inherited a mottled soul--
"Damned spots" that biased the looker on.

Clothed a freeman,
Turned loose in the land
Creditless, without experience,
He often stumbled, the way being strange,
Sometimes fell.

Mocked, sneered at from every angle,
spurned, hindered in every section,
North, south, east, west,
Refused the most primitive rights,
His slightest mistakes
Made mountains of,
Hunted, burned, hanged,
The death rattle in his throat
Drowned by shouts and laughter