The Marrow of Tradition · Chapter 28 (2/2)

This purpose was strengthened by his next interview with the major. When Carteret summoned him, an hour later, after the other gentlemen had taken their leave, Jerry had washed his head thoroughly and there remained no trace of the pomade. An attempt to darken the lighter spots in his cuticle by the application of printer’s ink had not proved equally successful⁠—the retouching left the spots as much too dark as they had formerly been too light.

“Jerry,” said Carteret sternly, “when I hired you to work for the Chronicle, you were black. The word ‘negro’ means ‘black.’ The best negro is a black negro, of the pure type, as it came from the hand of God. If you wish to get along well with the white people, the blacker you are the better⁠—white people do not like negroes who want to be white. A man should be content to remain as God made him and where God placed him. So no more of this nonsense. Are you going to vote at the next election?”

“What would you ’vise me ter do, suh?” asked Jerry cautiously.

“I do not advise you. You ought to have sense enough to see where your own interests lie. I put it to you whether you cannot trust yourself more safely in the hands of white gentlemen, who are your true friends, than in the hands of ignorant and purchasable negroes and unscrupulous white scoundrels?”

“Dere’s no doubt about it, suh,” assented Jerry, with a vehemence proportioned to his desire to get back into favor. “I ain’ gwine ter have nothin’ ter do wid de ’lection, suh! Ef I don’ vote, I kin keep my job, can’t I, suh?”

The major eyed Jerry with an air of supreme disgust. What could be expected of a race so utterly devoid of tact? It seemed as though this negro thought a white gentleman might want to bribe him to remain away from the polls; and the negro’s willingness to accept the imaginary bribe demonstrated the venal nature of the colored race⁠—its entire lack of moral principle!

“You will retain your place, Jerry,” he said severely, “so long as you perform your duties to my satisfaction and behave yourself properly.”

With this grandiloquent subterfuge Carteret turned to his next article on white supremacy. Jerry did not delude himself with any finespun sophistry. He knew perfectly well that he held his job upon the condition that he stayed away from the polls at the approaching election. Jerry was a fool⁠—

“The world of fools hath such a store,

That he who would not see an ass,

Must stay at home and shut his door

And break his looking-glass.”

But while no one may be entirely wise, there are degrees of folly, and Jerry was not all kinds of a fool.