The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-04
By WILLIAM MELVILLE SUTTON.
ARTICLE /.

pIODdDlN uOI many IulleS from LudJ
drab and dreary city-the serene, eel
like body of Mason and Dixon's line
runs. Out Of Cincinnati, bound for
all points in the South, run palatial
trains, all-Pullmans, designed for
millionaires, nouveau-r c h e an d
Northern Statesmen Who Demand
Comfort. Out of this same port run
cheaper denominations
of Pullmans and coaches-and mig
gah" coaches.
Crossing the Dead Line.
The Northerner may know little
about geography-he may not know
just where the Mason and Dixon line
divides North from South, much vaun-
ted, but fictitious liberalism FIR 0 m
paraded bigotry, half-hearted, wordy
tolerance from complete intolerance.
Yet, however weak his powers of dis
cernment, let him cross the Mason and
Dixon line and he knows. How does
he know? The Negro Of Negroes who,
slightly emboldened by the absence
of kicks in the North and as employee
of the Pullman or the railway COM
pany, courteously, but firmly and i'm
pressively, furthered the chamber
business of his or her employers, now
become, vertically, shrinking, fawn-
ing slave.
The white mantle homing South
erner and the sojourning Northerner
with a superiority complex--who ac-
cepted the black mans service a little
timidly, little fearfully perhaps, yet
in the spirit in which it was prof
fered, now is the self-assertive mas
ter, curt, abrupt, peremptory, buster
ing.
The Negro knows he is in the
South; the Northerner knows he is in
the South. Both forget or ignore the
existence of the Emancipation Pro-
clamation or the Constitutional
Amendment that seeks to make all
men free and equal in this good old
U. S. A. For the Southerner j, =
merely the return of the master - :, 3
domain. The spirit of the Sodta, to
speak of the Negro and his Northern
FRIEND" pervades them both. He
who doubts that a Northerner can be-
come a Southerner in a few minutes
need but ride across the SNUG i'm
aginary line that separates the APP
parently free Negro from the OBJ
viously enslaved. Just to cross the
line on an American train is sufficient
introduction to the nature of the
South.
Give a Liberal Power.
The usual Northerner, however
boisterous he is in asserting his lib
eralism, is always ready to try out
his power on the black in the South.
Often, being of the same mental and
social calibre as the Southerner, he
smarts of too equal rating of Negro
with white; often, he smarts for no
reason at all. Whatever his emotions,
he becomes an experimental psycholo-
gist among the Negroes. Fig
uratively, he likes to kick one and
hear him squeal and see him run, and
he has the assurance that no Southern
black has the audacity or the courage
to return the kick, for always in the
offing, with hands itching to slip
moose over his head and to string him
up to the nearest tree, stands the
white mans mob-symbol of the
white mans justice in the South-as-
sembled as if out Of nowhere in less
than it takes to say "Jack Robinson"
or, for that matter, than it takes to
kick a niggah. To the Southener,
born and bred to superiority and mas
terry, asserting his royal rights is a
boring process. He would rather
kick dog-there is much more fun
in that for him.
They Do Lynch.
This matter of lynchings and mob
rule: l, in common with other North
erners who had never been in the
South, had always been inclined to
doubt the number of hangings of
Negroes and to ascribe the few l was
willing to admit were perpetrated to
gang of irresponsible, uprighteous
defenders of virginity, who, envious
because black and not they, was
courageous enough to take it from a
woman, reimbursed their lean souls
by wrecking vengeance upon him.
UnrepOrted Lynchings.
But during my stay among the corn
and watermelon, the cotton and the
rice, my doubts were knocked on the
head | found that lesser crimes gave
rise to mob rule and lynchings, that a
mere theft-for which a white man
might be sentenced to 90 days in the
county jail--would bring swift death
to a black, that the mere presence Of
a Negro in the neighborhood of a
crime would make him and a rope
the center of huge and hilarious
celebration, no news of which would
ever penetrate to the North.
The festivities would be entered in
with a great show of spirit, zeal,
gayety and enjoyment by every wor-
shipful Baptist, Methodist, Ku
KIuxer aY,d Other. S,rch fiandish IN orone