as equals. Do
you want to see 'em sitting around in our parlors? Do you want to see
a mulatto South? To bring it right home to you, would you let your
daughter marry a nigger?"

"No, I wouldn't consent to my daughter's marrying a nigger, but that
doesn't prevent my treating a black man fairly. And I don't see what
fair treatment has to do with niggers sitting around in your parlors;
they can't come there unless they're invited. Out of all the white men
I know, only a hundred or so have the privilege of sitting around in
my parlor. As to the mulatto South, if you Southerners have one boast
that is stronger than another, it is your women; you put them on a
pinnacle of purity and virtue and bow down in a chivalric worship
before them; yet you talk and act as though, should you treat the
Negro fairly and take the anti-inter-marriage laws off your statute
books, these same women would rush into the arms of black lovers and
husbands. It's a wonder to me that they don't rise up and resent the
insult."

"Colonel," said the Texan, as he reached into his handbag and brought
out a large flask of whisky, "you might argue from now until hell
freezes over, and you might convince me that you're right, but you'll
never convince me that I'm wrong. All you say sounds very good, but
it's got nothing to do with facts. You can say what men ought to be,
but they ain't that; so there you are. Down here in the South we're up
against facts, and we're meeting 'em like facts. We don't believe the
nigger is or ever will be the equal of the white man, and we ain't
going to treat him as an equal; I'll be damned if we will. Have a
drink." Everybody except the professor partook of the generous Texan's
flask, and the argument closed in a general laugh and good feeling.

I went back into the main part of the car with the conversation on my
mind. Here I had before me the bald, raw, naked aspects of the race
question in the South; and, in consideration of the step I was just
taking, it was far from encouraging. The sentiments of the Texan--and
he expressed the sentiments of the South--fell upon me like a chill. I
was sick at heart. Yet I must confess that underneath it all I felt a
certain sort of admiration for the man who could not be swayed from
what he held as his principles. Contrasted with him, the young Ohio
professor was indeed a pitiable character. And all along, in spite of
myself, I have been compelled to accord the same kind of admiration t