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A door to the left of the president’s desk glided open. In came a tall Negro valet bearing a tea tray, which he placed on a side table. “Shall I pour, sir?”
“Thank you, Harold, I’ll do my own pouring.”
The valet left the room. Roosevelt went to a cabinet behind his desk and took out a crystal decanter. “Except I’ll be pouring this. What’ll it be, Captain, whiskey or wine? I’m having claret myself. I never touch spirituous liquors.”
That is how I wound up sitting beside TR on the green sofa, sipping fine Kentucky bourbon from a china teacup embossed with the presidential seal.
“I presume our old friend Nate Pryor has given you some idea why I wanted to see you,” he said.
I placed my cup on the saucer. “He actually didn’t say much, to be honest. Only that it was to do with the South, some kind of mission. A problem with the colored people? Danger, perhaps.”
“I’ve been doing a little checking on you, Ben. It just so happens that the place you were born and raised is the perfect place to send you. Assuming you agree to this assignment.”
“Mississippi?”
“Specifically your hometown. Eudora, isn’t it?”
“Sir? I’m not sure I understand. Something urgent in Eudora?”
He walked to his desk and returned with a blue leather portfolio stamped with the presidential seal in gold.
“You are aware that the crime of lynching has been increasing at an alarming rate in the South?” he said.
“I’ve read newspaper stories.”
“It’s not enough that some people have managed to reverse every forward step the Negro race has managed since the war. Now they’ve taken to mob rule. They run about killing innocent people and stringing ’em up from the nearest tree.”
The president placed the portfolio in my hand.
“These are papers I’ve been collecting on the situation: reports of the most horrible occurrences, some police records. Things it’s hard for a Christian man to credit. Especially since the perpetrators of these crimes are men who claim to be Christians.”
My first thought was that the president was exaggerating the problem. Northerners do that all the time. Of course I had heard of lynchings, but I hadn’t known of any in Mississippi since I was a boy.
“They hang men, they hang women, for God’s sake they even hang young children,” Roosevelt said. “They do the most unspeakable things to their bodies, Ben.”
I didn’t say a word. How could I? He was talking about my hometown.
“I’ve tried discussing the matter with several southern senators. To a man, they claim it’s the work of outsiders and a fringe element of white reprobates. But I know damn well it’s the Klan, and in some of these towns that includes ju
st about every respectable white man.”
“But Colonel,” I said, “the Klan was outlawed forty years ago.”
“Yes. And apparently it’s stronger than ever now. That’s why you’re here, Captain.”
Chapter 14
I WAS GLAD when Roosevelt reached for the decanter again. This talk of the sins of my fellow southerners had me upset, even a little angry.
“Colonel, I haven’t spent much time down home since I finished law school,” I said cautiously. “But I’d be surprised if there’s a problem in Eudora. Folks there generally treat the Negroes well.”
When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Open your eyes, Ben. Since April there have been two men and a fifteen-year-old boy allegedly lynched within a few miles of your hometown. It’s on the way to becoming a goddamn epidemic, and I—”
“Excuse me, sir. Sorry to interrupt. You said ‘allegedly’?”
“Excellent! You’re paying attention!” He thwacked my knee with the portfolio. “In this file you’ll see letter after letter, report after report, from congressmen, judges, mayors, governors. Nearly every one tells me the lynching reports are greatly exaggerated. There are no lynchings in their towns or districts. The Negro is living in freedom and comfort, and the white southerner is his boon friend and ally.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to admit that had I been asked, that would have been very much like my own estimate of the situation.
