Making speeches in and around New York City, and meeting hundreds of people of every racial type, I had a good time. I think the Democratic National Committee must have had a grading committee, with grades A, B, C, D. Cabinet members and a few senators apparently got Grade A, because they were assigned to all the big speaking engagements. Older congressmen and less prominent senators were about B. I think I must have gotten C, because most of my assignments were county and small meetings. The D men would take in neighborhood meetings and little political clubs.

It may be, however, they thought I was a D man, because once they sent me to an up-state Kiwanis Club, containing only one Democrat who got in by accident. They also sent me to a neighborhood meeting which was held in the basement of a truckman's house.

I had more fun at these two meetings than I had at any of the others.

The Kiwanis meeting was in Kingston, New York, just a few milses above the residence of the President, and in Republican Congressman Ham Fish's territory. On arriving, I asked the taxi driver how the town was on politics. He was too cagey. But I visited around and found that all of the Uppers and Abovers were members of the I Hate Roosevelt Club, especially my Kiwanis audience.

I made a rip-roaring speech. They made polite applause at the end. They were real gentlemen. But as I left with the lone Democrat, I had a feeling I was lost in the Arctic. The taxi driver, however, had found out who I was and waited outside. He said his conscience hurt him for not telling me as I came in, but up there only Republicans rode in taxis. Also the bartender, and his porter, an old Negro who was dressed like Old Black Joe and who came from Virginia, both shook hands with me openly and without shame. One of the bellboys whispered: "I'm O.K., but I can't afford to be too open about it."

The Democrats were in the catacombs like the ancient Christians of Rome, and I had, besides my Arctic feeling, an idea that the imperial Romans around town had a big pot of boiling oil in which to place those who were so ignorant as to leave the fold of Cal Coolidge.

It was a few days later that I went to the basement meeting. I never saw such a meeting in my life. There were Ruthenians, and races I had never heard of. People from Baltic States, from around the Black Sea, somebody from Smyrna. We were in the very midst of a district that had always gone Republican. It was north of the Bronx line, where the rich commuters live and have big houses and estates. They have people working for them, however, and here and there are little villages where some average people live.

Sitting next to me was a young Italian, who spoke first. I felt sure that he would speak with an Italian accent, but he let loose with a speech that would put a Nordic blond to shame.

When I rose I thought of the catacombs. I told them of the early Christians, and how they had to go into the catacombs of Rome. I was joking, but it was no joke to them. So I spoke seriously, told them to get out of the catacomb of economics, to get out of the cellar. I told them to Rise and Shine.

After the meeting I met them all. They had kegs of beer and sandwiches. They sang songs. More, they talked sense. It was astounding to me.

The ignorance of the alleged "upper classes" in this country is appalling. In New York and elsewhere, I have met them. Many of them are schoolmates, who have gone up the economic ladder. Since leaving college, they apparently have not read a book, nor thought a thought concerning anything outside of their business.

Here, indeed, were the Christians of the Catacombs, only they were a jolly crew. But more so than ever before, I realized the old Nordic blonde was in for it. So I decided to whip all these upstart races who are over-running our country. I did it by resigning as a Nordic, and joining up with them. For in that basement I saw what is to be the New America. A lot of the gentlemen who ride the trains every morning and night, and have chauffeurs waiting for them, likewise some Up-Staters, might do well to look around. Around them an entirely new crop is growing, and change is coming. The thing to do is to get in on the change with the least trouble.

After all, however, you can get too much of New York. And one day everybody at the Democratic Headquarters quit work to go to the ball game; President Roosevelt was going, too. That night I suddenly decided that I would leave and go to Washington, where the hotels don't have too many floors, and where the room clerk would know me when I came in, and where the taxi driver might say, "Hello, Congressman." Moreover, I decided that I would not even carry my own grip and would check it through as baggage—just get on the train and read the newspapers.

As I got the ticket, I decided that I would not ride in the Pullman, but in the coaches. Just then I met Emil Muehlendorff. He had had a few drinks. I had the low-downs and had them bad. Emil, however, is my old friend and he cheered me up.

Emil and I were in the fourth grade together in San Antonio. Emil had some rowdy habits—he would fight at the drop of a hat. He and I sat together in school while Francisco Madero, across the street, cooked up that revolution. We got to know Madero and the other Mexican revolutionists well. In fact, we knew about the arms and ammunitions being shipped into Mexico, although we were just kids. He belonged to a poor family, his mother was a widow, and he had to quit school and go selling newspapers.

Then I lost track of Emil and I would see him every now and then with a good or bad job. Somehow he learned to be an architect; he is a natural draftsman, and has a lot of brains. During the Hoover Era, when a building went to pieces, Emil, like millions of other Americans, hit the bottom. I have an idea that Emil even got to where he used transportation not of the usual sort. He turned up in San Antonio one time, broke. But the next time I saw him was in Washington, dressed fit to kill, with a new job and doing well.

Emil is a Southern gentleman, but goes a little out of his way to stand up for his rights. He had gone up to a place near Fort-sixth and Broadway where they sold chile con carne with plenty of hot peppers in it. Whiskey and chile con carne, mixed properly, always brings warlike ideas to a Texan. So, as we walked along in the great station, Emil made remarks. Those who wore the Landon Kansas sunflower were insulted outright.

Finally, we marched in and got on the train and sat down. There was a large group or delegation from Georgia who had come to see the World Series. One country lout was sitting there all by himself, occupying four seats. I asked him rather politely if he would mind moving his seat, which he angrily and belliegerently refused to do. Some big bully on the other side told him not to give his place up. This made me feel very good, because I had not had a train row since I was a kid in the old days when we used to fight over our seats in the coaches. I asked him again to move his seat, and he again refused. So I jerked his feet up and slammed the seat back and Emil glowered ferociously at our new enemies. The big bully on the other side then began to tell what he was going to do with me. I was very happy and had forgotten all about my being a worthy Congressman. There was a little Jew sitting on the right hand side of me who looked scared to death. I took off my eyeglasses and handed them to him in preparation for battle, but nothing happened. Confidentially, I was glad of that, too, but it was Emil's fercious looks, I think, that saved me.

Emil kept making nasty remarks, but I finally quieted him down and he fell sound asleep. We arrived in Philadelphia and by that time I had gotten a great big seat all by myself—one single person sitting where four ought to sit. I had fallen asleep and was awakened by the brakeman. He told me to get up, that a lady and a gentleman wanted my seat.

Lo and behold, I arose and saw that it was a colored man and his wife. I looked back and saw that some seats were occupied by colored people, and that there were several vacant ones left. I suggested to the brakeman that there was no reason to move me. He said that I had four seats and that there was no need for me to "split a couple." I suggested that they should move to the other place, but the couple became plumb adamant!

Here was a Southern Congressman being thrown out of his seat by colored people. Thoughts, not unusual in a Southerner, flashed through my mind—not my thoughts, get me—but the thoughts of wicked people—Negroes throw Congressman out of seat—Southern Congressman bows before wrath of Negroes. Headlines!—Congressman Maverick thrown out of seat by colored couple—Southerner makes cowardly retreat. . . .

But trouble was brewing.

So I arose and bowed very dignifiedly, and said: "Have my seat." Without the slightest hesitation they pushed in and took it.

So I sat with Emil, who had slept through it all. The country boy from Georgia whose seat I had taken away was trying, I saw, to attract my attention. I knew I was in for an insult. I looked out of the window and looked to the side and pretended not to notice. However, after a while, I forgot, and looked his way. He made a wry face, then twisted it like a great baboon, and put his hands up to his ears to indicate that I was a jackass.

By this time I was enjoying myself very much. I had lost all of my belligerence. From then on the Georgians were out to get me and I could hear all kinds of fight talk. They were worse than LaGuardia talking about Hitler. If they had said anything on earth after what had happened, they could not have gotten me out of my seat to fight.

However, I soon had my revenge. The colored people were sitting to the right of me and in front of me and between two sections of the Georgia delegation. The colored people got up a great din talking about the large international meeting that they were going to in Washington. It was their feeling of race consciousness, and the fact that they were sitting there among white people—they sensed the situation, and the Georgia delegation was at their mercy.

Then the colored people began to talk about their lodge, and the woman to my right was the worst of the lot. She talked and talked and talked about the "Supreme Lecturer," mouthing all kinds of curious phrases similar to those of Father Divine. They used the most bizarre language that I ever heard in my life. I was getting a little weary, however, and would have liked some sleep.

But I was enjoying the embarrassment of the Georgia delegation, especially since they stopped talking about me. They did not know whether to throw rocks, to command the colored people to silence, or whether they should insult them. Southern dignity forbade them to compete with colored people in loud noises. So all the way from Philadelphia into Washington, D. C., two long hours, I was reagaled with noisy conversation. By the time we arrived in Washington, the Georgia delegation was entirely whipped—and so was Congressman Maverick.

As superficial as all of this seems, it is a very important chapter in American life. What happened to me is what has happened to thousands and thousands of American people, white and colored, and will happen to more and more and more millions.

In the situation, I could have gone and bought myself a parlor-car seat. I might even have played the fool and started a fight; it is possible that I could have intimidated the colored couple.

This incident is filled with a great many implications—racial, social, political and economic.

It put me to thinking about Jim Crow laws. In Atlanta, for instance, the Candler building has six or seven elevators. Only one can be used by the colored people. It is clumsy, and, I am sure, an extra expense. Jim Crow transportation is also additionally expensive. Already, in bus transportation over the South, there is much less segregation, because the busses are small, and segregation almost impossible.

But a lot of the Jim Crow hubbub in New York by "advancement" groups is misdirected zeal. Colored people starve in Harlem, while people worry about how colored people ride down South. . . . The first thing to do about the question is to see the colored people eat, and have jobs. Let them have a wage scale equal to white people if they do equal work.

If economic opportunities are fair, and the different races show restraint, other questions will work themselves out.

One time while I was attending a session of Congress, a citizen called me out to talk. I did not hear his name, but he represented himself as a favor of the anti-lynching bill, which I said I would support. Some of my colleagues who were passing gave me a funny look.

I finally realized he was a Negro. He had seen mobs and knew the terror of them. Naturally, I was sympathetic. Later, he met me and called me by my first name, and others heard it.

It was the first time any colored person had ever called me by my first name. It was somewhat shocking, but I did not fall to pieces, nor shake with rage, nor, so far as I know, change my expression. I wondered if he was trying to get a rise out of a Southern Congressman. At any rate, he didn't.

There is a point in mentioning this. Some up-stage Negros think that because a Congressman favors an anti-lynching bill that he ought to be slapped on the back publicly. On the other hand I do not want colored people to run up to me with a red bandana handkerchief, singing "Coming Through the Rye."

All of which means that if our race questions are ever to be half-way solved, that all races need double restraint and good manners. And there are other races than the colored, and as I said in the very beginning, I am opposed to white men being lynched too.

But down in Texas, late one night, a colored man killed my cousin.