Perhaps he hears candidates for office insisting on a reign of law or a plea for order above all things, by some sentimentalist or other, or public speakers advising those who have not respect for American institutions to go back whence they came, and then sees whole sections of the country violating every principle of law and order and mocking American institutions for the sake of teaching a “nigger” his place.

Perhaps during the war he heard of the bloody crimes of our enemies, and saw preachers and editors and statesmen stand aghast at the barbaric atrocities which won for the German the name of Hun, and then looked toward his own people and saw them being burned, disembowelled and tortured with a civic unanimity and tacit legal sanction which made the word Hun sound weak.

Perhaps he has heard it boasted that in America every man who is honest, industrious and intelligent has a good chance to win out, and has seen honest, industrious and intelligent men whose skins are black stopped short by a wall so high and so thick that all they can do, on having reached that far, is to bow their heads and go slowly back.

Any one of these reasons should have been sufficient for having written “Darkwater.”

It is unfortunate that Mr. Du Bois should have raised this question of our own responsibility just at this time when we were showing off so nicely.  It may remind some one that instead of taking over a protectorate of Armenia we might better take over a protectorate of the State of Georgia, which yearly leads the proud list of lynchers.  But then, there will not be enough people who see Mr. Du Bois’s book to cause any great national movement, so we are quite sure, for the time being, of being able to devote our energies to the solution of our other problems.

* * * * *

Don’t forget, therefore, to write your Congressman about a universal daylight-saving bill, and give a little thought, if you can, to the question of the vehicular tunnel.

XLI

THE NEW TIME-TABLE

The new time-table of the New York Central Railroad (New York Central Railroad, Harlem Division.  Form 113.  Corrected to March 28, 1922) is an attractive folder, done in black and white, for the suburban trade.  It slips neatly into the pocket, where it easily becomes lost among letters and bills, appearing again only when you have procured another.

So much for its physical features.  Of the text matter it is difficult to write without passion.  No more disheartening work has been put on the market this season.

In an attempt to evade the Daylight-Saving Law the New York Central has kept its clocks at what is called “Eastern Standard Time,” meaning that it is standard on East 42d Street between Vanderbilt and Lexington Avenues.  Practically everywhere else in New York the clocks are an hour ahead.