only thing that counts in America.” He thought the League of Nations might help the Negro if its representatives ever met at Washington. There would be Frenchmen and Englishmen and Italians, and, being so near to the South, it would be a shame to America if lynchings took place while they were sitting. As it was, the Negro South was a sort of skeleton cupboard which must not be exposed. From him I learned first that the Negro had not access to the Carnegie libraries in the South. I was surprised. Up at Baltimore, in the North, I was talking to a librarian, and he averred that the Negroes used the public library much more than white people, and that there were so many darkies that Whites did not care to go. But I travel such a very short distance South, and I find no Negro admitted at all. [44] [44] “Surely that is contrary to the spirit of the Carnegie grants,” said I. “Yes, for Carnegie was a good friend to the Negro. But so it is,” said Dr. R——. “And I do not think Negroes should agitate about it. It would be better for Negroes to build their own libraries. We shall have to do so. But we don’t want to intrude where we’re not wanted.” He told me what he considered the most thrilling moment of his life. He was out with a friend at midnight watching the posting of election results, when suddenly a “lewd woman” came out of a house door, screaming and waving her arms. She made right for them, and they were in terror lest she should fall down at their feet or start reviling them. Fortunately, they had the presence of mind not to run away from her, or they might have been lynched by the crowd. The worthy doctor took us out and drove us all over the city, heartily apologizing that he could not ask me to have any meal with his wife and himself. “For, although you may have no prejudice, it would not be safe for either of us if it were known.” Which was indeed so. Throughout the whole of the South it is impossible to eat or drink with a colored man or woman. My chief way of finding people to whom I had introductions was by reference to the city directory. Here I found that all colored people were marked with a star—as much as to say,[45] “Watch out; this party’s colored.” White women were indicated as “Mrs.” or “Miss,” but colored women always as plain “Sarah Jones” or “Betty Thompson,” or whatever the name might be, without any prefix. This I discovered to be one of many small grievances of the Negro population, akin
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