The age-herald., 1897-08-20
TECHNICS FROM
 CURRENT TOPICS

incident that occurred many years ago
 in an Alabama town.
 In this town lived family of negroes.
 which had besn free for years before the
 emancipation proclamation had made the south s2aveless. They were octoroons,
 and had been for several generations,
 and while they had more comforts than
 usually belong to the race, they were 1 modest and unassuming, expecting no
 more privileges than were accorded to
 negroes of darker complexion. In the
 last generation of the family thsre were
 several children, and they were educated
 in rudfmentary way. one CT two of the
 daughters afbsrwards teaching in the ne- | gro public schools. One of the oldsr sons
 was more ambitious than the other men- bers of his family ard was sent to north ern schools in order to acquire a mere 1 thorough education than the negro l schools of the south at that time afforded. 1 Evidently this boy had aspirations to-
 wards social equality, and he believed 1 that in distant state it need never be l known that he was a negro, as his ccm- l plexion was fair, and his hair and eyes 1 denoted Anglo-Saxon blood But he rack- l orsd without remembering that fatality | shapes our ends do what we may. l He had no sooner entered prspara- 1 tory school in New York state than 1 white youth from the same Alabama | town became student at the same aIoad-
 einy. This was more demoralzing than
 an average cyclone to the Alabama octo- room, and. without explanations To the l faculty or students he quietly left the 1 school and upon advice from home jour- neyea into more distant northern state, l and matriculated at another academy l To his horror he discovered that there
 were already two Alabama boys at this school, and krew they would betray the | fact that he was not white but an octo- | room. Therefore, he "waited not upon l the order of his going" but left immed- 1 lately for Texas. believing that he was l pursued by a Nemesis cruel and tire less. In Texas he was known only as I young white man; he prospered in busi- l ness, and his associates were we'll bred 1 southerners who had not the slightest 1 suspicion of the taint in his blood. In few years he married a. vice | young girl, who had received him at his | own valuation, without making airy in- | quiries as to his past. The marriage | proved a happy one, except that the | young husband was pursued, whether asleep or awake with the te1ror of hay 1 ing his wife discover that dla had negro | blood in his veins. He bseame restless and anxious, and began to find excuses for moving from place to place. At last, he found himself with his unsuspecting wife away cut on the Pacific Slope, where | for a time, they were comfortable and
 led quiet life. But one bright, sunny morning on the strs;Its of a California town the man came face to face with an old acquaintance from his native Ala bama town. He was unnerved by thls un- | expected meeting, and before he recov- | cred his self-control, he gave the facts re- garding his marriage to the Alabamian; l told him of his wife,s ignorarce concern i ing his family, and implored>that his se- 1 cret be kept by his old acquaintance. The
 promise was given because young girls happiness hung in the balance.
 Immediately after this episode the oc- | toroon and his wife went abroad, he l hoping that by putting the restless waves l of the Atlantic between himself and his | secret they might find peace and com | fort once again. That was the last heard | of him. He wandered through European l cities, forever followed by the shadow | of his birth. His mother told his story in | moment of dispair and finished the l startling history with these simple 1 words wrung from her maternal heart: l "He does not write to rne any more for | fear my letters will betray the fact that 1 we are nsgpoes."
 The many pilgrimages made by Presi- | dent Mckinley to his home at Canton | Ohio, to pay the tribute of a sons de- | votion to a noble mother have aroused | a sympathy in the hearts of Americans
 
 | tive of triumphant party, became only | a grateful, loyal son to the great masses I when he journeysd to his home to spend l certain anniversaries with his old | mother. What he said and did in the | unpretentious Ohio home became of vital | interest, for the statesman was merged | for the time being into simply strong, | loving man who remembered that to his mother he owed more of his advance 1 ment and glory than to any other | agency except his Creator. But MT. Me- 1 Kinley has made just one pilgrimage l too many, and ha made that in the wrong l direction. When the persiden,t of the l United States, the ruler of more than f seventy millions of people, lowers tlla i dignity of his great offics by standing with barred head by the grave of John | Brown. the anarchist, the murderer and G@ fa;t o,,1 rNf