In October, Matthew wrote his first report for the Princess. He wrote it on his knee and in his one chair, sitting high up in the narrow furnished bedroom which he had hired in New York on West Fifty-ninth Street. It was a noisy and dirty region, but cheap and near his work. There was a bed, a chair, and a washstand, and he had bought a new trunk, in which he locked up his clothes and few belongings.
“Your Royal Highness:
“I have at your request made a hasty but careful survey of the attitude of my people in this country, with regard to the possibility of their aid to a movement looking toward righting the present racial inequalities in the world, especially along the color line.
“My people are increasing in material prosperity. A few are even accumulating wealth; large numbers own their homes and live in cleanliness and a fair degree of comfort. Extreme poverty and crime are decreasing, while intelligence is increasing. There is still oppression and insult, some lynching, and much caste and discrimination; but on the whole the Negro has advanced so rapidly and is still advancing at such a rate that he is more satisfied than complaining. He is astonished and gratified at his own success, and while he knows that he is not treated quite as a man and lacks the full freedom of a white man, he believes that he is daily approaching this goal.
“This main movement and general feeling is by no means shared by all. There is bitter revolt in the hearts of a small intelligentsia who resent color-caste, and among those laborers who feel in many ways the pinch of economic maladjustment and see the rich Negroes climbing on their bowed backs. These classes have no common program, save complaint, protest, and inner bickering; and only in the case of a small class of immigrant West Indians has this complaint reached the stage that even contemplates violence.
“Perigua is a man of intelligence and fire—of a certain honesty and force; but he is not to be trusted as a leader. His organization is a loose mob of incoherent elements united only by anger and poverty. They have their reasons. I first thought Perigua a vain and egotistic fool. But the other night sitting in his dirty flat—a furious, ragged figure of bitter resentment—he told me part of his story; spat it out in bits: of the beautiful wife whom an Englishman seduced; the daughter who became a prostitute; of the promotion refused him in the railroad shops because of color, and his fight with the color line in the army; of his prosecution for ‘inciting to riot’; his conviction and toil in jails and chain gangs, with vermin and disease; and of his long, desperate endeavor to stir up revolt in America. Perigua and those whom he represents have a grievance and a remedy, but he will never accomplish anything systematic. Do not think of contributing to his organization. I still have your envelope unopened. He has no real organization. He has only personal followers.
“On the other hand, the Negroes are thick with organizations—they are threaded through with every sort of group movement; but their organizations so far chime and accord with the white world; their business organizations, growing fast, have the same aims and methods as white business; their religion is a replica of white religion, only less snobbish because less wealthy. Even their labor movement is the white trade union, hampered by the fact that white unions discriminate and that colored labor is the wage-hammering adjunct of white capital.
“Your Highness and the friends whom I had the honor of meeting may then well ask, ‘Are these folk of any possible use to a movement to abolish the present dictatorship of white Europe?’ I answer, yes, a hundred times. American Negroes are a tremendous social force, an economic entity of high importance. Their power is at present partly but not wholly dissipated and dispersed into the forces of the overwhelming nation about them. But only in part. A tremendous striving group force is binding this group together, partly through the outer pounding of prejudice, partly by the growth of inner ideals. What they can and will do in the rebuilding of a better, bigger world is on God’s knees and not now clear; but clarity dawns, and so far as we gain self-consciousness today we can be a force tomorrow.
“The burning question is: What help is wanted? What can we do? What are your aims and program? I know well from your own character and thought that you could not encourage mere terrorism and mass murder. The very thought of ten million grandchildren of slaves trying to wrest liberty from ten times their number of rich, shrewder fellows by brute force is, of course, nonsense. On the other hand, with intelligenece and forethought, concentrated group action, we can so align ourselves with national and world forces as to gain our own emancipation and help all of the colored races gain theirs.
“Frankly then, what is the Great Plan? How and when can we best cooperate? What part can I take? I am eager to hear from you.
There came a knock on the door, and Matthew opened it. A young Japanese stood there who politely asked for Mr. Keswick. No, Mr. Keswick was not here and did not live here. In fact, Matthew had never heard of Mr. Keswick. The Japanese was sorry—very, very sorry for the intrusion. He went softly down the stairs.