On the east the murky waters of the Missouri seek their level. (page 132.)

The many vacant lots on Main street of both the towns were decorated with the typical scene at land openings. There were little tents with notaries assisted by many beautiful girls to "prepare your application." There were many hotels with three and four beds to a room, as well as "rooms to let" over all the places of business containing two stories or more. There were tents with five hundred cots, and "lest we forget", there were the numerous "drinking fountains," with bars the length of the building, behind which were scores of bartenders to serve the "how dry I am", on one side. On the other, in tents, back rooms and overhead could be heard the b-r-r-r-r of the little ivory marble as it spun a circuit over the roulette wheel, and the luck cages, where the idle sports turned them over for their own amusement, to pass away the time. The faro-bank and numerous wheels of fortune also had a place. From the rear came the strains of ragtime music. These were some of the many attractions that met the trains carrying the first arrivals on the night of October fifth.

CHAPTER XXIII

Table of Contents

WHERE THE NEGRO FAILS

LONG before I came west and during the years I had spent on the homestead, my closest companion was the magazines. From the time Thomas W. Lawson's "Frenzied Finance" had run as a serial article in a leading periodical, to Ida M. Tarbell's "The History of the Standard Oil Company," I fairly devoured special articles on subjects of timely interest. I enjoyed reading anything that would give me a more complete knowledge of what made up this great country in which we live and which all Americans are given to boasting of as the "greatest country in the world."

And this brings to my mind certain conditions which exist concerning the ten odd millions of the black race in America; and more, this, in itself had a tendency to open wider the gap between a certain class of the race and myself.

There are two very distinct types or classes, among the American negroes. I am inclined to feel that this is more prominent than most people are aware. I have met and known those who are quick to think, practical, conservative as well as progressive, while there are those who are narrow in their sympathies and short-sighted in their views. Now as a matter of argument, my experience has taught me there are more of this class than most colored people have any idea.

The worst feature of this situation, however, is that a large number of the latter class have commingled with the former in such a way as to easily assume all the worthy proportions. They are a sort of dog in the manger, and are not in accord with any principle that is practical and essential to the elimination of friction and strife between the races.