ding of the
Negro boy for the hand of the girl, whom to protect and defend he owned
not himself. My very heart would weep when I pictured those fond hearts
torn asunder by the slave trader. I could see the boy far away, in some
lonely cornfield in Georgia, pause, lean upon his plow and sigh for his
lost love as he listened to the cooing of the dove, while she, far away
in Tennessee or in some Virginia cornfield mournfully sang as she
dropped the yellow corn.

'Ebry time the sun goes down
I hangs ma head an' cries.'

Have we not done enough to a forgiving race? The case of Richard Holmes
is a strong proof of the Negroes' high and lofty conception of purity
and virtue, and had he been a white man, his actions would have been
applauded to the echo. My opinion is that just so long as the safeguards
around Negro women are so weak, so long as the laws upon the statute
books of Southern States brand her as a harlot, pure or impure, and keep
her outside the pale of pity and consideration, just so long will our
representatives have to resort to murder and intimidation to get to
Congress. The strength of any race rests in the purity of its women, and
when the womanhood is degraded, the life blood of a race is sapped.
Should we be disappointed under this showing because the Negro does not
vote with us? You know as well as I that the Negro's vote was at the
bottom of all this trouble. And we will always have trouble as long as
the destruction of Negro womanhood is only an indiscretion. Mrs. Fells
of Georgia shows the narrowness of her soul when she cries aloud for the
protection of white women in isolated sections of Georgia against
lustful Negroes, when she knows perfectly well that Negro girls in
Georgia need the same protection against lustful whites. A woman who is
not desirous of protecting the innocent of any race is insincere, and
should be branded as a hypocrite." "Mrs. Fells should not be blamed for
ignoring Negro women. They are all fallen creatures," said Mrs. Engle.
"That's a broad assertion for any woman to make, and there's no white
woman that believes it in her innermost soul," returned Mrs. McLane.
"The best white blood of the South flows through the veins of Negroes,
and this reveals the unmistakable weakness of a superior race." * * *
"The weakness of the men of a superior race! Be careful and make that
distinction, Marjorie," said Mrs. Bruce. "Southern white women are the
most virtuous women in the world