irs of his wealth. They are educated, cultured and occupy high social
positions. Had I not as good a right to be well born as any of them? And
yet, through my father's crime, I was doomed to the status of a slave
with its heritage of ignorance, poverty and social debasement. Talk of
the heathenism of Africa, of hostile tribes warring upon each other and
selling the conquered foes into the hands of white men, but how much
higher in the scale of moral progression was the white man who doomed
his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, to a life of
slavery? The heathen could plead in his defence the fortunes of war, and
the hostility of an opposing tribe, but the white man who enslaved his
child warred upon his hapless offspring and wrote chattel upon his
condition when his hand was too feeble to hurl aside the accursed hand
and recognize no other ownership but God. I once felt bitterly on this
subject, and although it is impossible for my father to make full
reparation for the personal wrong inflicted on me, I owe him no grudge.
Hating is poor employment for any rational being, but I am not prepared
to glorify him at the expense of my mother's race. She was faithful to
me when he deserted me to a life of ignorance and poverty, and although
three-fourths of the blood in my veins belongs to my father's face, I
feel a kinship with my mother's people that I do not with his, and I
will defend that race from the aspersions of the meanest Negro hater in
the land. Heathenism and civilization live side by side on American
soil, but all the heathenism is not on the side of the Negro. Look at
slavery and kukluxism with their meanness and crimes, mormonism with its
vile abominations, lynch law with its burnings and hangings, our
national policy in regard to the Indians and Chinese."

"I do not think," said the minister, "that there is another civilized
country in the world where men are lynched for real or supposed crimes
outside of America."

"The Negro need not bow his head like a bulrush in the presence of a
race whose records are as stained by crime and dishonor as theirs. Let
others decry the Negro, and say hard things about him, I am not prepared
to join in the chorus of depreciation."

After parting with the minister, Mr. Thomas resolved, if pluck and
energy were of any avail, that he would leave no stone unturned in
seeking employment. He searched the papers carefully for advertisements,
walked from one worksho