The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1908-03-31
mR. r.. l.. DURHAM,s BOOK.

4 beRlnS 10 1fe&Lc SenS3LkOn-I me
/ Call Of the South Being Read I'm
Washington With Much Relish.
Senator TfIlman. President Roose-
welt, National and South Carolina
I Politics Form Basis For the Vol
, ume.
Mr.. Zach McGhee. the Washington
correspondent OF the Observer, had
the following interesting special in that
, paper yesterday relative To the forth
coming novel Of Mr.. X. l. Durham.
OF Charlotte:
! Senator Tillman, President Roose-
Welt, the Booker Washington lunch
eCn at the white house n a purely
imaginary South Carolina newspaper
man, together with some interesting
South Carolina and national politics,
form the basis of a thrilling novel.
whose theme - the race question, just
being published by l. G. Page & Co,
of Boston. The boo which Is named
THE Call of the South is written by
Robert Lee Durham. now an attorney
at Charlotte. but who lived for several
years at ~Spartanburg. Advanced copies
have reached Washington and are be-
ginning to create a sensation. T4llman
is not specially a prominent figure IN
the book. The name given to him Is
"Killam" and his identity is unmis-
taxable.
The imaginary newspaper man Is
a Washington correspondent whom the
governor of South Carolina appoints
&c an unexpired term in the United
States senate and who afterwards runs
for the senate against Tillman- This
is merely an incident, however. Presl-
len Roosevelt, whose identity is ar
~tistically revealed through the
but not Opaque veil, is the central fig
IRE.
He lunches several times with ne
grOeS and expresses what is in the
south thought to be the typical north
ern view Of the race question, which
is that the color of Il mans Min should
no more bar social and political rec
ognitiOn than the color Of his hair or
eyes. The president comes to q diff
erent conclusion when he finds that
his daughter has secretly married a
negro who is a highly cultivated oc-
toroOn n a graduate of Harvard, and
when the first offspring of this a
riage shows a reversiOn to a remote
ancestor and is black. the presidents
hearstrings crack and he dies.
The name of the president is Hayne
Phillips. His boast is that he is all
American, My mother was a South
Carolinian and my father was from
Massachusetts, is a favorite way of
his putting it.
Rutledge is the nam of the journ-
alist-senator and makes the principal
speech in the senate in opposition to
the presidents race views, which views
however, are not extreme enough for
the fiery and picturesque 'Kiliam."
A campaign meeting at S~partanburg
is described and the hot time which
often characterizes the Gaffney meet
ings is referred to.
Mr.. Durham shows a power Of de-
scriptiOn and of dramatic presentation
truly wonderful, and in artistic fin
ish his book beyond question sur
passes anything yet written on the
race question. He does not present
a succession of the incoherent thrills
so noticeable even to the non-critical
reader Of Tom Dixon's m~elOdramas;
1t is one artistic sensation. 1t is also
free from the sectional bias, so char
acteristic Of writer's on that subject,
while at the same time it presents in
the most powerful way yet presented
the southern white mans views OF the
matter of social equality of the races.
1t is being recalled in connection
with this book that Mr.. Durham who Is
a trustee of Trinity College, North Car
DINA, was one of those who voted
against the expulsion OF Prot John
SCpecere Bassett who made some ex-
travagant and quite ridiculous re-
marks about the superlative greatness
of Booker Washington. Durham was
living at Spartanburg at the time, and
he told his friends there that while
of course he did not agree with Prof.
Bassett that Booker Washington was
the greatest man next to General Lee
the south had produced since the rev.
olution, but he did not believe it prop
er to put a college professor out OF his
job for entertaining or expressing such
a view.
Durham is a young man of versatile
accomplishments and ~many-sidod in
terest. His book shows it, though his
friends who know of his compre hen
sive mind, his proves on the foot
ball field as well as on the golf inks
and his bearing as a captain In the
Spanish war knew it already.
The book will be out ome time dur
ing the coming week. Meantime 1t
is being read here with avidity by a
number OF prominent public men who
have secured advanced copies.-Char-
lotte Observer.
1t coaxes back that we'll feeling,