“It is laying impious hands on God’s truth—it is taking His property.”
“I am not sure that God has any truth—that is, any arrangement of facts of which He is finally fond and of which He could not and does not easily conceive better or more fitting arrangement. And as to property, I’m sure He has none. Every time He has come to us, He has been disgustingly poor.”
The woman rose and fled. Matthew sighed and went back to his round of thought. Municipal ownership of transportation in Chicago: he had begun to look into it. He was prejudiced against it by his college textbooks and his political experience. But here somehow he scented something else. Back of the demand made to kill the present municipal ownership was another proposal to renew the franchise of the streetcar lines with an “Indeterminate Permit,” which meant in fact a perpetual charter. There was a powerful lobby of trained lawyers back of this bill, and what struck Matthew was that the same lobby was back of the movement to kill municipal ownership. Were they interested in superpower projects also? Matthew viewed this whole scramble as one who watches a great curdling of waters and begins to sense the current.
He was not evolving a conscience in politics. He was not revolting against graft and deception, but he was beginning to ask just what he was getting for his effort. Money? Some—not so very much. But the thing was—not wrong—no—but unpleasant—ugly. That was the word. He was paying too much for money—money might cost too much, It might cost ugliness, writhing, dirty discomfort of soul and thought. That’s it. He was paying too much for even the little money he got. He must pay less—or get more. Matthew sighed and looked at the next card. It was that of the Japanese statesman whom he had met in Berlin. He arose slowly and faced the door.
XII
“I trust I am not intruding,” said the Japanese.
Matthew bowed coldly. He gave no sign of recognizing the Japanese, nor did he pretend not to.
“Certainly not—these are my office hours.”
The Japanese was equally reticent and yet was just a shade too confidential to be an entire stranger. And again in Matthew’s mind flamed and sang that Berlin dinner party. Even the music floated in his ears. But he put it all rudely and brusquely aside.
“What can I do for you, sir? Be seated. Will you smoke?”
The Japanese took a cigarette, tasted it with relish, and leaned back easily in his chair. He glanced at the office. Matthew was ashamed. If he had been white, he would have had a room in the new Abraham Lincoln Hotel; something fine and modern, clean and smart, with service and light. If he had been black, free, and rich, he would perhaps have received his guest in a house of his own—delicately vaulted and soft with color; something beautiful in brick or marble, with high sweep of a curtain and pillar, a possibility of faint music, and silent deferential service. But being black, half slave, and poor, he had the front room of Mrs. Smith’s boardinghouse, a show room, to be sure, but conglomerate of jarring styles and tastes, overloaded and thick with furnishings; with considerable dust and transient smells and near the noisy street. Matthew was furious with himself for thinking thus apologetically. Whose business was it how he lived or what he had?
Then the Japanese looked at him.
“I have been much interested in noting the increased political power of your people,” he said.
“Indeed,” said Matthew, noncommittally.
“When I was in the United States twenty years ago—” (So he had been here twenty years ago and interested in Negroes!)—“you were politically negligible. Today in cities and states you have a voice.”
Matthew was silent.
“I have been wondering,” said the Japanese with the slow voice of one delicately feeling his way—‘I have been wondering how far you have unified and set plans—”
“We have none.”
“—either for yourselves in this land, or even further, with an eye toward international politics and the future of the darker races?”
“We have little interest in foreign affairs,” said Matthew.
The Japanese shifted his position, asked permission, and lighted a second cigarette. He glanced appraisingly at Matthew.
“Some time ago,” he continued, “at a conference in Berlin, it was suggested that intelligent cooperation between American Negroes and other oppressed nations of the world might sensibly forward the uplift and emancipation of the darker peoples. I doubted this at the time.”
“You may continue to doubt,” said Matthew. “The dream at Berlin was false and misleading. We have nothing in common with other peoples. We are fighting out our own battle here in America with more or less success. We are not looking for help beyond our borders, and we need all our strength at home.”
It would have been difficult for Matthew to say what prompted him to talk like this. Mainly, of course, it was deep-seated and smoldering resentment against this man whose interference, he believed, had wrecked his world. Perhaps, of course, this was not true. Perhaps shipwreck was certain, but—he was determined not to sail for those harbors again, not for a moment even to reconsider the matter; and he repeated as his own the current philosophy of the colored group about him. It sounded false as he spoke, but he talked on. The Japanese watched him as he talked.
“Ah!” he said. “Ah! I am sorry. There were some of us who hoped—”
Matthew’s heart leaped. Questions rushed to his lips, and one word clamored for utterance. He beat them back and glanced at his watch.
The Japanese arose. “I am keeping you?” he said.
“No—no—I have a few minutes yet.”
The Japanese glanced around, and bending forward, spoke rapidly.
“The Great Council,” he
