The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-05
NEW BOOK NEWS
CONDUCTED BY MARTHA YOUNG

 The Master word.-Mrs. L. M. Ham, mend has written a strong novel of the South of today. The Black Peril that threatens always the South is set forth plainly and unsparingly.
 Rv a truthful and unexaggerated pie turing of facts as they do exist at the South, Mrs. Hamond shows. without any preachment, that the Black Peril is one that recoils' upon the lower race, that ever the strong front that the vir- tue of the dominant race presents drives from its own purity the horror that one and another of its weaker members makes way for In the authors plea for perfect love in life, the power of Love as the Master Word in every par agraph she shows that it must be Love ruled by Law, Love hand in hand with Law. The pure love story, that makes of the study of conditions and problems at the South a novel of in- tent and appeal, is the usual thing in the life of a beautiful and wealthy Southern girl.
 The companion of her childhood's games and study becoming naturally with the coming of buoyant youth her lover. The course of love runs roughly only because Bruce does not wish in his wooing to appear as a>fortune- T Word conquers Pride, and all goes hap oily less strong hand, a less per- feet artist sense would have let the love of the unhappy Viny put at least apparently some stumbling bolcks in the way of the young lovers, but Mrs. Hammond has wisely avoided that pitt fall which the line of the plot opened up. The real heroine of the book is Margaret, the mother.
  man.
 Beautiful, we'll poised, cultured, able and shrewd in business, ideal and no- ble in sentiment, proud to a degree and warm with sympathy for all suffering, The great scene of the book is that wherein Margaret appears before the horde of negroes who have been brought to desecrate her lawn and flowers by the fellow Bolles.
 Bolles had led the negroes after a political barbecue to the old home with the purpose of Frightening the mother and daughter, a revenge on the absent men who had fought his political aspir- ations.
 The crowd had spread over the lawn, trampiing the flowers, they had shout ed ribald songs, the women, with that terrible retrogation which Is the fear full menace of the race as it is freed 
 and control were turning springs like boys for the amusement of the crowd.
 Through the closed house came no sign of life.
 Bolles, fearing that his revenge was lost, that the women were also absent, began to beat on the great door de- manding entrance.
 Margaret, judging that control of the eli hn at to the door, accompanied by Bess and Viny, each with pistols, she alone, how ever, threw open the door and faced the crowd.
 "she was not at all in the terror stricken state he had imagined.
 "The negroes had all seen her by this time, and hushed one another to hear what she said There was scarcely one of them who had not heard some story of her kindness to members of their race, and several had had personal -ex- perience of 1t. All of them knew that she had been read out in both col. ored churches of the village as a friend of the negroes They stared in admiration at her beauty. and took a genuine pleasure in her pride; she was real quality, fer sho'.
 "Bolles cut a sorry figure, and they grinned to see.
 Margaret stepped past him sudL enly and came to the edge of the porch.
 The crowd waited breathless. Be- fore her face the negro passion for beauty, ignorant but mighty, stirred drawing them dimly upward, while her eyes, quiet now. but commanding searched those of the crowd. Her look held unconsciously the fearlessness, the sense of dominance, of security of pow CT, of a race long used to mas.e.. and as unconsciously, the men long born to obedience, acknowledged it's right to rule. An uneasy shifting grew among them.
 "The women had moved first, but only to draw nearer to the woman on the porch above them. They huddled together, looking up, their heavy faces working with a new emotion which was fast rising to the point where ex- pression of some kind was inevitable Margaret saw both the danger and the hope. She stood by one of the great pillars gazing down on them, her face paling a little, her calm and steady look melting slowly to one of utter compassion, when suddenly from tho squalid group there scared voice. as high and clear as though 1t sprane from the throat of a seraph at heav- ems gate.
 The first note cut the tension like a sword. A great gasp went throug4. me crowd, and a thousand voices caught up the song, until the wild melody rolled out on the darkeniHg air freighted with the inarticulate longing of a race."
 This is the key to the upward path for the negro. It is wonder that ne- grophiles and sincere workers for the good of the world and all its races have never found 1t, when 1t lay sright to hand
 The negro can be truly lifted only as the white race lifts him. And the uplift must be a spiritual call from the higher to the lower. The white man who puts himself on an equality with the negro, or who places the ne- gro on an equality with himself. can never do any lasting good in lifting the race though he spend millions try ing.
 They are the child race of the world They need leading, teaching, control and always from above.
 If some organization among the old