you are with an awakened race in your
borders thoroughly of the opinion that you are not giving them a
semblance of fair treatment," said John Blue.

"I gad, we must bring the North our way. I see that whoever, in this
fight of the races, gets the outsider is going to carry the day. We are
coming in the next campaign. Look out for us."

The two men bade each other adieu and Earl walked out of the office.

Earl invaded state after state in the South and conferred with the
radical leaders wherever he went and found the sentiment everywhere
prevailing that the time was ripe for the radical South to pull off its
mask and let the world see its real heart.

With an anxious heart Earl watched the forming of the lines of the
campaign. Men in all parts of the country, whose only hope of success
lay in obtaining the political power in the hands of the radicals,
besought them to forego making the Negro question an issue, but they
were deaf to all appeals.

The convention dominated by the radicals met, and John Blue, alias Earl
Bluefield, was there. When the Anti-Negro plank was read, from his seat
in the gallery a mighty cheer rang out that started a wave of enthusiasm
unsurpassed in the history of political conventions.

As John Blue stood waving a flag and cheering, his eye swept over that
great throng, and he said to himself:

"O bonnie Southland: if you had developed real statesmen among you, men
who knew their age, they would be here to tell all these people save
myself to be quiet, on the ground that it is indelicate for a corpse to
cheer at its own funeral. But your really great men are at home
sorrowing over your coming humiliation. This day's work is the beginning
of the end. Eunice, the sky brightens!

"Heaven of heavens, I thank thee that thou hast so arranged it that the
American people must now say as to whether or not the caste spirit shall
be allowed to lay his bloody tentacles on the political life of the
whole nation."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

_Postponing His Shout of Triumph._

With ceaseless, tireless energy Earl Bluefield went everywhere in the
North during the campaign that followed, assailing the political power
in control of the South. The heat of his heart warmed his words and his
eloquence thrilled the nation.

"How has it happened that an orator of such power has remained so long
hidden from the nation's gaze?" was the question everywhere asked.

In an address to Northern labor, which wa