es. But there he sat, silent and
unmoved, his swarthy, eagle-like face, with its frame of iron-grey
hair as unchanging as if he had never had a passionate thought.

"I don't like Jim Courtney's silence," whispered Stowell to a
colleague. "There's never so much devil in him as when he keeps still.
You look out for him when he does open up."

But all the details of the convention do not belong to this narrative.
It is hardly relevant, even, to tell how Stowell's prediction came
true, and at the second day's meeting Courtney's calm gave way, and he
delivered one of the bitterest speeches of his life. It was in the
morning, and he was down for a set speech on "The Negro in the Higher
Walks of Life." He started calmly, but as he progressed, the memory of
all the wrongs, personal and racial that he had suffered; the
knowledge of the disabilities that he and his brethren had to suffer,
and the vision of toil unrequited, love rejected, and loyalty ignored,
swept him off his feet. He forgot his subject, forgot everything but
that he was a crushed man in a crushed race.

The auditors held their breath, and the reporters wrote much.

Turning to them he said, "And to the press of Washington, to whom I
have before paid my respects, let me say that I am not afraid to have
them take any word that I may say. I came here to meet them on their
own ground. I will meet them with pen. I will meet them with pistol,"
and then raising his tall, spare form, he shouted, "Yes, even though
there is but one hundred and thirty-five pounds of me, I will meet
them with my fists!"

This was all very rash of Courtney. His paper did not circulate
largely, so his real speech, which he printed, was not widely read,
while through the columns of the local press, a garbled and distorted
version of it went to every corner of the country. Purposely
distorted? Who shall say? He had insulted the press; and then Mr.
Hamilton was a very wealthy man.

When the time for the consideration of Elkins' resolution came,
Courtney, Jones and Shackelford threw themselves body and soul into
the fight with Gray and its author. There was a formidable array
against them. All the men in office, and all of those who had received
even a crumb of promise were for buttering over their wrongs, and
making their address to the public a prophecy of better things.

Jones suggested that they send an apology to lynchers for having
negroes where they could be lynched. This called for