The Congress of the Imperium was called and assembled in special session at the Capitol building just outside of Waco.  The session began on the morning of April—­the same day on which the Congress of the United States had under consideration the resolutions, the adoption of which meant war with Spain.  These two congresses on this same day had under consideration questions of vital import to civilization.

The proceedings of the Anglo-Saxons have been told to the world in minute detail, but the secret deliberations of the Imperium are herein disclosed for the first time.  The exterior of the Capitol at Waco was decorated with American flags, and red, white and blue bunting.  Passers-by commented on the patriotism of Jefferson College.  But, enveloped in this decoration there was cloth of the color of mourning.  The huge weeping willows stood, one on each side of the speaker’s desk.  To the right of the desk, there was a group of women in widow’s weeds, sitting on an elevated platform.  There were fifty of these, their husbands having been made the victims of mobs since the first day of January just gone.

To the left of the speaker’s desk, there were huddled one hundred children whose garments were in tatters and whose looks bespoke lives of hardship.  These were the offsprings robbed of their parents by the brutish cruelty of unthinking mobs.

Postmaster Cook, while alive, was a member of the Imperium and his seat was now empty and draped in mourning.  In the seat was a golden casket containing his heart, which had been raked from the burning embers on the morning following the night of the murderous assault.  It was amid such surrounding as these that the already aroused and determined members of the Congress assembled.

Promptly at 11 o’clock, Speaker Belton Piedmont took the chair.  He rapped for order, and the chaplain offered a prayer, in which he invoked the blessings of God upon the negro race at the most important crisis in its history.  Word was sent, by proper committee, across the campus informing the president that Congress was in session awaiting his further pleasure.  According to custom, the president came in person to orally deliver his message.

He entered in the rear of the building and marched forward.  The Congress arose and stood with bowed heads as he passed through.  The speaker’s desk was moved back as a sign of the president’s superior position, and directly in the center of the platform the president stood to speak.  He was dressed in a Prince Albert suit of finest black.  He wore a standing collar and a necktie snowy white.  The hair was combed away from that noble brow of his, and his handsome face showed that he was nerved for what he regarded as the effort of his life.