There was nothing unjust about such a course, he argued, for
Negroes anyway were too lazy and shiftless to buy the land. They would
not, they could not, work without driving. All this he imparted to John
Taylor, to which that gentleman listened carefully.
"H'm, I see," he owned. "And I know the way out."
"How?"
"A cotton mill in Toomsville."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Bring in whites."
"But I don't want poor white trash; I'd sooner have niggers."
"Now, see here," argued Taylor, "you can't have everything you
want--day's gone by for aristocracy of old kind. You must have
neighbors: choose, then, white or black. I say white."
"But they'll rule us--out-vote us--marry our daughters," warmly objected
the Colonel.
"Some of them may--most of them won't. A few of them with brains will
help us rule the rest with money. We'll plant cotton mills beside the
cotton fields, use whites to keep niggers in their place, and the fear
of niggers to keep the poorer whites in theirs."
The Colonel looked thoughtful.
"There's something in that," he confessed after a while; "but it's a
mighty big experiment, and it may go awry."
"Not with brains and money to guide it. And at any rate, we've got to
try it; it's the next logical step, and we must take it."
"But in the meantime, I'm not going to give up good old methods; I'm
going to set the sheriff behind these lazy niggers," said the Colonel;
"and I'm going to stop that school putting notions into their heads.
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