“Have you got any books on cooperative societies?” He doubted whether he had.
“Well, never mind.” She swung her chair around, facing Kenneth, and leaned forward intently, the light from the arc-lamp in the corner illumining her face and revealing the eager, enthusiastic look upon it.
“Kenneth, why can’t those coloured people pool their money and buy their goods wholesale and then distribute them at cost?”
Kenneth laughed, it must be confessed a little cheerfully, that she had gone from one problem into the mazes of another that was just as difficult.
“For the very same reason that they are in the predicament they are in today. They haven’t got the money. Perhaps you can tell me where the money to start this cooperative scheme is coming from?”
“That’s an easy one to answer. It’s going to come from you and papa and three or four more of these folks here in town who can afford it! Oh, Ken, can’t you see what a big thing you can do? There are lots of people, white people I mean, right here in Central City, who’d be glad to help these poor Negroes get out of debt. Papa was telling us today about a talk he had with Judge Stevenson the other day. The Judge said he wished there was some way to help without it making him unpopular with the other folks here in town. Of course, the folks who are making money off this system, the landlords and the storekeepers, won’t like it, but you can go and talk with folks like Judge Stevenson and Mr. Baird down at the Bank of Central City. If this first trial succeeds—and I know it will be a success—it’ll spread all over Smith County, and then all over Georgia, and then all over the South, and the coloured folks will have millions of dollars that they’ve been cheated out of before. That, Kenneth Harper, is one way you can lead, and it won’t get you in bad with the white people at least the decent ones—either.”
Kenneth began to be infected by her enthusiasm. He saw that her idea had possibilities. But, manlike, he didn’t want to give in too soon or too readily.
“There is something in what you say, Jane, but the details will have to be worked out first before we can tell if it is a practicable idea. I’ll think it—”
Jane interrupted him, showing that she hadn’t even been listening to him.
“When are you to meet again at Reverend Wilson’s?” she asked.
He told her.
“Well, I tell you what we’ll do. You go home and think over all the ways we can put this idea into practice. I’ll do the same thing. And then we’ll talk it over again tomorrow night. On Wednesday you go down to see Judge Stevenson and see if he will draw up the papers so it’ll be legal and binding and everything else. Then on Thursday night you can present this as your own idea, and I’ll bet you anything you say, they’ll take it up and you’ll be the one chosen to lead the whole movement.”
After some discussion of details, Kenneth left. The more he thought of Jane’s idea, the more it appealed to him. At any rate, she had suggested more in half an hour than he had been able to think of in four days. Hadn’t the cooperative societies been the backbone of the movement to get rid of the Czar in Russia? If the Russian peasants, who certainly weren’t as educated as the Negro in America, had made a success of the idea, the Negro in the South ought to do it. By Jove, they could do it! Idea after idea sprang to his mind, after the seed had been sown by Jane, until he had visions of a vast cooperative society not only buying but selling the millions of dollars’ worth of products raised by the nine million Negroes of the South. And that wasn’t all! These societies would be formed with each member paying monthly dues, like the fraternal organizations. When enough money was in the treasury, they would employ the very best lawyers money could get to take one of those cases where a Negro had not been able to get a fair settlement with his landlord, and make a test case of it. What if they did lose in the local court? They’d take it to the State Supreme Court! What if they did lose even there? They’d take it clear up to the United States Supreme Court! They were sure to win there. Kenneth walked home with his head whirling with the project’s possibilities. He saw a new day coming when a man in the South would no longer be exploited and robbed just because he was black. And when that came, lynching and everything else like it would go too. He felt already like Matthew and Andrew and Peter and John and the other disciples when they started out to bring the good news to the whole world. For wasn’t he a latter-day disciple bringing a new solution and a new hope to his people?
It was not until Kenneth had gone to bed that he realized that though he had been with Jane all the evening, he had had not one minute when he could have spoken of love to her. Musing thus, he fell asleep.
XI
Early the next morning Kenneth rose and rummaged through his books until he found his old and battered textbooks on economics.
Into these he dipped during the intervals between patients, making notes of ideas which seemed useful in the organization of the cooperative society. The more he read, the more feasible the plan seemed. Properly guided and carefully managed, there was no reason, so far as he could see, why the society should not be a success. Eighty percent of the farmers of the South, white and coloured, he estimated, suffered
