VI
Two important events took place on Easter Sunday, 1934. The first was a huge mass meeting in the brand new reinforced concrete auditorium of the Knights of Nordica for the double purpose of celebrating the first anniversary of the militant secret society and the winning of the millionth member. The second event was the wedding of Helen Givens and Matthew Fisher, Grand Exalted Giraw of the Knights of Nordica.
Rev. Givens, the Imperial Grand Wizard of the order, had never regretted that he had taken Fisher into the order and made him his right-hand man. The membership had grown by leaps and bounds, the treasury was bursting with money in spite of the Wizard’s constant misappropriation of funds, the regalia factory was running night and day and the influence of the order was becoming so great that Rev. Givens was beginning to dream of a berth in the White House or near by.
For over six months the order had been publishing The Warning, an eight-page newspaper carrying lurid red headlines and poorly-drawn quarter-page cartoons, and edited by Matthew. The noble Southern working people purchased it eagerly, devouring and believing every word in it. Matthew, in 14-point, one-syllable word editorials painted terrifying pictures of the menace confronting white supremacy and the utter necessity of crushing it. Very cleverly he linked up the Pope, the Yellow Peril, the Alien Invasion and Foreign Entanglements with Black-No-More as devices of the Devil. He wrote with such blunt sincerity that sometimes he almost persuaded himself that it was all true.
As the money flowed in, Matthew’s fame as a great organizer spread throughout the Southland, and he suddenly became the most desirable catch in the section. Beautiful women literally threw themselves at his feet, and, as a former Negro and thus well versed in the technique of amour, he availed himself of all offerings that caught his fancy.
At the same time he was a frequent visitor to the Givens home, especially when Mrs. Givens, whom he heartily detested, was away. From the very first Helen had been impressed by Matthew. She had always longed for the companionship of an educated man, a scientist, a man of literary ability. Matthew to her mind embodied all of these. She only hesitated to accept his first offer of marriage two days after they met because she saw no indication that he had much, if any, money. She softened toward him as the Knights of Nordica treasury grew; and when he was able to boast of a million-dollar bank account, she agreed to marriage and accepted his ardent embraces in the meantime.
And so, before the yelling multitude of night-gowned Knights, they were united in holy wedlock on the stage of the new auditorium. Both, being newlyweds, were happy. Helen had secured the kind of husband she wanted, except that she regretted his association with what she called lowbrows; while Matthew had won the girl of his dreams and was thoroughly satisfied, except for a slight regret that her grotesque mother wasn’t dead and some disappointment that his spouse was so much more ignorant than she was beautiful.
As soon as Matthew had helped to get the Knights of Nordica well under way with enough money flowing in to satisfy the avaricious Rev. Givens, he had begun to study ways and means of making some money on the side. He had power, influence and prestige and he intended to make good use of them. So he had obtained audiences individually with several of the leading business men of the Georgia capital.
He always prefaced his proposition by pointing out that the working people were never so contented, profits never so high and the erection of new factories in the city never so intensive; that the continued prosperity of Atlanta and of the entire South depended upon keeping labor free from Bolshevism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, trade unionism and other subversive movements. Such un-American philosophies, he insisted had ruined European countries and from their outposts in New York and other Northern cities were sending emissaries to seek a foothold in the South and plant the germ of discontent. When this happened, he warned gloomily, then farewell to high profits and contented labor. He showed copies of books and pamphlets which he had ordered from radical book stores in New York but which he asserted were being distributed to the prospect’s employees.
He then explained the difference between the defunct Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of Nordica. While both were interested in public morals, racial integrity and the threatened invasion of America by the Pope, his organization glimpsed its larger duty, the perpetuation of Southern prosperity by the stabilization of industrial relations. The Knights of Nordica, favored by increasing membership, was in a position to keep down all radicalism, he said, and then boldly asserted that Black-No-More was subsidized by the Russian Bolsheviks. Would the gentlemen help the work of the Nordicists along with a small contribution? They would and did. Whenever there was a slump in the flow of cash from this source, Matthew merely had his print shop run off a bale of Communistic tracts which his secret operatives distributed around in the mills and factories. Contributions would immediately increase.
Matthew had started this lucrative side enterprise none too soon. There was much unemployment in the city, wages were being cut and work speeded up. There was dissatisfaction and grumbling among the workers and a small percentage of them was in a mood to give ear to the half-dozen timid organizers of the conservative unions who were being paid to unionize the city but had as yet made no headway. A union might not be so bad after all.
The great mass of white workers, however, was afraid to organize and fight for more pay because of a deepset fear that the Negroes would take their jobs. They had heard of black labor taking the work of white labor under the guns of white militia, and they were afraid to risk it. They had first read of the activities of Black-No-More, Incorporated, with a secret feeling akin to relief but after the orators of the Knights of Nordica and the editorials of The Warning began to portray the menace confronting them, they forgot about their economic ills and began to yell for the blood of Dr. Crookman and his associates. Why, they began to argue, one couldn’t tell who was who! Herein lay the fundamental cause of all their ills. Times were hard, they reasoned, because there were so many white Negroes in their midst taking their jobs and undermining their American standard of living. None of them had ever attained an American standard of living to be sure, but that fact never occurred to any of them. So they flocked to the meetings of the Knights of Nordica and night after night sat spellbound while Rev. Givens, who had finished the eighth grade in a one-room country school, explained the laws of heredity and spoke eloquently of the growing danger of black babies.
Despite his increasing wealth (the money came in so fast he could scarcely keep track of it), Matthew maintained close contact with the merchants and manufacturers. He sent out private letters periodically to prominent men in the Southern business world in which he told of the marked psychological change that had come over the working classes of the South since the birth of the K. of N. He told how they had been discontented and on the brink of revolution when his organization rushed in and saved the South. Unionism and such destructive nostrums had been forgotten, he averred, when The Warning had revealed the latest danger to the white race. Of course, he always added, such work required large sums of money and contributions from conservative, substantial and public-spirited citizens were ever acceptable. At the end of each letter there appeared a suggestive paragraph pointing out the extent to which the prosperity of the New South was due to its “peculiar institutions” that made the worker race conscious instead of class conscious, and that with the passing of these “peculiar institutions” would also pass prosperity. This reasoning proved very effective, financially speaking.
Matthew’s great success as an organizer and his increasing popularity was not viewed by Rev. Givens with equanimity. The former evangelist knew that everybody of intelligence in the upper circles of the order realized that the growth and prosperity of the Knights of Nordica was largely due to the industry, efficiency and intelligence of Matthew. He had been told that many people were saying that Fisher ought to be Imperial Grand Wizard instead of Grand Exalted Giraw.
Givens had the ignorant man’s fear and suspicion of anybody who was supposedly more learned than he. His position, he felt, was threatened, and he was decidedly uneasy. He neither said nor did anything about it, but he fretted a great deal to his wife, much to her annoyance. He was consequently overjoyed when Matthew asked him for Helen’s hand, and gave his consent with alacrity. When the marriage was consummated, he saw his cup filled to overflowing and no clouds on the horizon. The Knights of Nordica was safe in the family.
One morning a week or two after his wedding, Matthew was sitting in his private office, when his secretary announced a caller, one B. Brown. After the usual delay staged for the purpose of impressing all visitors, Matthew ordered him in. A short, plump, well-dressed, soft-spoken man entered and greeted him respectfully. The Grand Exalted Giraw waved to a chair and the stranger sat down. Suddenly, leaning over close to Matthew, he whispered, “Don’t recognize me, do you Max?”
The Grand Giraw paled and started. “Who are you?” he whispered hoarsely. How in the devil did this man know him? He peered at him sharply.
The newcomer grinned. “Why it’s me, Bunny Brown, you big sap!”
“Well, cut my throat!” Matthew exclaimed in amazement. “Boy, is it really you?” Bunny’s black face had miraculously bleached. He seemed now more chubby and cherubic than ever.
“It aint my brother,” said Bunny with his familiar beam.
“Bunny, where’ve you been all this time? Why didn’t you come on down here when I wrote you? You must’ve been in jail.”
“Mind reader! That’s just where I’ve been,” declared the former bank clerk.
“What for? Gambling?”
“No: Rambling.”
“What do you mean: Rambling?” asked the puzzled Matthew.
“Just what I said, Big Boy. Got to rambling around with a married woman. Old story: husband came in unexpectedly and I had to crown him. The fire escape was slippery and I slipped. Couldn’t run after I hit the ground and the flatfoot nabbed me. Got a lucky break in court or I wouldn’t be here.”
“Was it a white woman?” asked the Grand Exalted Giraw.
“She wasn’t black,” said Bunny.
“It’s a good thing you weren’t black, too!”
“Our minds always ran in the same channels,” Bunny commented.
“Got any jack?” asked Matthew.
“Is it likely?”
“Do you want a job?”
“No, I prefer a position.”
“Well, I think I can fix you up here for about five grand to begin with,” said Matthew.
“Santa Claus! What do I have to do: assassinate the President?”
“No, kidder; just be my right-hand man. You know, follow me through thick and thin.”
“All right, Max; but when things get too thick, I’m gonna thin out.”
“For Christ’s sake don’t call me Max,” cautioned Matthew.
“That’s your name, aint it?”
“No, simp. Them days has gone forever. It’s Matthew Fisher now. You go pulling that Max stuff and I’ll have to answer more questions than a traffic officer.”
“Just think,” mused Bunny. “I been reading about you right along in the papers but until I recognized your picture in last Sunday’s paper I didn’t know who you were. Just how long have you been in on this graft?”
“Ever since it started.”
“Say not so! You must have a wad of cash salted away by this time.”
“Well, I’m not appealing for charity,” Matthew smiled sardonically.
“How many squaws you got now?”
“Only one, Bunny—regular.”
“What’s matter, did you get too old?” chided his friend.
“No, I got married.”
“Well, that’s the same thing. Who’s the unfortunate woman?”
“Old man Givens’ girl.”
“Judas Priest! You got in on the ground floor didn’t you?”
“I didn’t miss. Bunny, old scout, she’s the same girl that turned me down that night in the Honky Tonk,” Matthew told him with satisfaction.
“Well, hush my mouth! This sounds like a novel,” Bunny chuckled.
“Believe it or not, papa, it’s what God loves,” Matthew grinned.
“Well, you lucky hound! Getting white didn’t hurt you none.”
“Now listen, Bunny,” said Matthew, dropping to a more serious tone, “from now on you’re private secretary to the Grand Exalted Giraw; that’s me.”
“What’s a Giraw?”
“I can’t tell you; I don’t know myself. Ask Givens sometime. He invented it but if he can explain it I’ll give you a grand.”
“When do I start to work? Or rather, when do I start drawing money?”
“Right now, Old Timer. Here’s a century to get you fixed up. You eat dinner with me tonight and report to me in the morning.”
“Fathers above!” said Bunny. “Dixie must be heaven.”
“It’ll be hell for you if these babies find you out; so keep your nose clean.”
“Watch me, Mr. Giraw.”
“Now listen, Bunny. You know Santop Licorice, don’t you?”
“Who doesn’t know that hippo?”
“Well, we’ve had him on our payroll since December. He’s fighting Beard, Whooper, Spelling and that crowd. He was on the bricks and we helped him out. Got his paper to appearing regularly, and all that sort of thing.”
“So the old crook sold out the race, did he?” cried the amazed Bunny.
“Hold that race stuff, you’re not a shine anymore. Are you surprised that he sold out? You’re actually becoming innocent,” said Matthew.
“Well, what about the African admiral?” Bunny asked.
“This: In a couple of days I want you to run up to New York and look around and see if his retention on the payroll is justified. I got a hunch that nobody is bothering about his paper or what he says, and if that’s true we might as well can him; I can use the jack to better advantage.”
“Listen here, Boy, this thing is running me nuts. Here you are fighting this Black-No-More, and so is Beard, Whooper, Gronne, Spelling and the rest of the Negro leaders, yet you have Licorice on the payroll to fight the same people that are fighting your enemy. This thing is more complicated than a flapper’s past.”
“Simple, Bunny, simple. Reason why you can’t understand it is because you don’t know anything about high strategy.”
“High what?” asked Bunny.
“Never mind, look it up at your leisure. Now you can savvy the fact that the sooner these spades are whitened the sooner this graft will fall through, can’t you?”
“Righto,” said his friend.
“Well, the longer we can make the process, the longer we continue to drag down the jack. Is that clear?”
“As a Spring day.”
“You’re getting brighter by the minute, old man,” jeered Matthew.
“Coming from you, that’s no compliment.”
“As I was saying, the longer it takes, the longer we last. It’s my business to see that it lasts a long time but neither do I want it to stop because that also would be disastrous.”
Bunny nodded: “You’re a wise egg!”
“Thanks, that makes it unanimous. Well, I don’t want my side to get such an upper hand that it will put the other side out of business, or vice versa. What we want is a status quo.”
“Gee, you’ve got educated since you’ve been down here with these crackers.”
“You flatter them, Bunny; run along now. I’ll have my car come by your hotel to bring you to dinner.”
“Thanks for the compliment, old man, but I’m staying at the Y.M.C.A. It’s cheaper,” laughed Bunny.
“But is it safer?” kidded Matthew, as his friend withdrew.
Two days later Bunny Brown left for New York on a secret mission. Not only was he to spy on Santop Licorice and see how effective his work was, but he was also to approach Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard, Dr. Napoleon Wellington Jackson, Rev. Herbert Gronne, Col. Mortimer Roberts, Prof. Charles Spelling, and the other Negro leaders with a view to getting them to speak to white audiences for the benefit of the Knights of Nordica. Matthew already knew that they were in a precarious economic situation since they now had no means of income, both the black masses and the philanthropic whites having deserted them. Their white friends, mostly Northern plutocrats, felt that the race problem was being satisfactorily solved by Black-No-More, Incorporated, and so did the Negroes. Bunny’s job was to convince them that it was better to lecture for the K. of N. and grow fat than to fail to get chances to lecture to Negroes who weren’t interested in what they said anyhow. The Grand Exalted Giraw had a personal interest in these Negro leaders. He realized that they were too old or too incompetent to make a living except by preaching and writing about the race problem, and since they had lost their influence with the black masses, they might be a novelty to introduce to the K. of N. audiences. He felt that their racial integrity talks would click with the crackers. They knew more about it too than any of his regular speakers, he realized.
As the train bearing Bunny pulled into the station in Charlotte, he bought an evening paper. The headline almost knocked him down:
Wealthy White Girl Has Negro Baby
He whistled softly and muttered to himself, “Business picks up from now on.” He thought of Matthew’s marriage and whistled again.
From that time on there were frequent reports in the daily press of white women giving birth to black babies. In some cases, of course, the white women had recently become white but the blame for the tar-brushed offspring in the public mind always rested on the shoulders of the father, or rather, of the husband. The number of cases continued to increase. All walks of life were represented. For the first time the prevalence of sexual promiscuity was brought home to the thinking people of America. Hospital authorities and physicians had known about it in a general way but it had been unknown to the public.
The entire nation became alarmed. Hundreds of thousands of people, North and South, flocked into the Knights of Nordica. The real white people were panic-stricken, especially in Dixie. There was no way, apparently, of telling a real Caucasian from an imitation one. Every stranger was viewed with suspicion, which had a very salutory effect on the standard of sex morality in the United States. For the first time since 1905, chastity became a virtue. The number of petting parties, greatly augmented by the development of aviation, fell off amazingly. One must play safe, the girls argued.
The holidays of traveling salesmen, business men and fraternal delegates were made less pleasant than of yore. The old orgiastic days in the big cities seemed past for all time. It also suddenly began to dawn upon some men that the pretty young thing they had met at the seashore and wanted to rush to the altar might possibly be a whitened Negress; and young women were almost as suspicious. Rapid-fire courtships and gin marriages declined. Matrimony at last began to be approached with caution. Nothing like this situation had been known since the administration of Grover Cleveland.
Black-No-More, Incorporated, was not slow to seize upon this opportunity to drum up more business. With one hundred sanitariums going full blast from Coast to Coast, it now announced in full page advertisements in the daily press that it was establishing lying-in hospitals in the principal cities where all prospective mothers could come to have their babies, and that whenever a baby was born black or mulatto, it would immediately be given the 24-hour treatment that permanently turned black infants white. The country breathed easier, particularly the four million Negroes who had become free because white.
In a fortnight Bunny Brown returned. Over a quart of passable rye, the two friends discussed his mission.
“What about Licorice?” asked Matthew.
“Useless. You ought to give him the gate. He’s taking your jack but he isn’t doing a thing but getting your checks and eating regularly. His followers are scarcer than Jews in the Vatican.”
“Well, were you able to talk business with any of the Negro leaders?”
“Couldn’t find any of them. Their offices are all closed and they’ve moved away from the places where they used to live. Broke, I suppose.”
“Did you inquire for them around Harlem?”
“What was the use? All of the Negroes around Harlem nowadays are folks that have just come there to get white; the rest of them left the race a long time ago. Why, Boy, darkies are as hard to find on Lenox Avenue now as they used to be in Tudor City.”
“What about the Negro newspapers? Are any of them running still?”
“Nope, they’re a thing of the past. Shines are too busy getting white to bother reading about lynching, crime and peonage,” said Bunny.
“Well,” said Matthew, “it looks as if old Santop Licorice is the only one of the old gang left.”
“Yeah, and he won’t be black long, now that you’re cutting him off the payroll.”
“I think he could make more money staying black.”
“How do you figure that out?” asked Bunny.
“Well, the dime museums haven’t closed down, you know,” said Matthew.