“I have a favor to ask,” said Mr. Thomas, “can you spare me a few moments?”

“I am at your service,” Mr. Hasting replied, “what can I do for you?”

“I have,” he said, “a young friend who is honest and industrious and competent to fill the place of clerk or cashier in your store.  He has been a cashier for Hazleton & Co., and while there gave entire satisfaction.”

“Why did he leave?”

“I cannot say, because he was guilty of a skin not colored like your own, but because a report was brought to Mr. Hazleton that he had Negro blood in his veins.”

“And what then?”

“He summarily dismissed him.”

“What a shame!”

“Yes, it was a shame, but this pride of caste dwarfs men’s moral perception so that it prepares them to do a number of contemptible things which, under other circumstances, they would scorn to do.”

“Yes, it is so, and I am sorry to see it.”

“There are men, Mr. Hastings, who would grow hotly indignant if you would say that they are not gentlemen who would treat a Negro in a manner which would not be recognized as fair, even by ruffians of the ring, for, I believe, it is their code of honor not to strike a man when he is down; but with respect to the colored man, it seems to be a settled policy with some not only to push him down, but to strike him when he is down.  But I must go; I came to ask a favor and it is not right to trespass on your time.”

“No; sit still.  I have a little leisure I can give you.  My fall trade has not opened yet and I am not busy.  I see and deplore these things of which you complain, but what can be done to help it?”

“Mr. Hastings, you see them, and I feel them, and I fear that I am growing morbid over them, and not only myself, but other educated men of my race, and that, I think, is a thing to be deprecated.  Between the white people and the colored people of this country there is a unanimity of interest and I know that our interests and duties all lie in one direction.  Can men corrupt and intimidate voters in the South without a reflex influence being felt in the North?  Is not the depression of labor in the South a matter of interest to the North?  You may protect yourself from what you call the pauper of Europe, but you will not be equally able to defend yourself from the depressed laborer of the new South, and as an American citizen, I dread any turn of the screw which will lower the rate of wages here; and I like to feel as an American citizen that whatever concerns the nation concerns me.  But I feel that this prejudice against my race compresses my soul, narrows my political horizon and makes me feel that I am an alien in the land of my birth.  It meets me in the church, it confronts me in business and I feel its influence in almost every avenue of my life.”

“I wish, Mr. Thomas, that some of the men who are writing and talking about the Negro problem would only come in contact with the thoughtful men of your race.  I think it would greatly modify their views.”