Here and there are tales of projects for money-getting, born in the swift days of Reconstruction,—“improvement” companies, wine companies, mills and factories; most failed, and the Jew fell heir.
Du Bois recounts the speculative economic ventures that emerged during Reconstruction in the South, noting their general failure and the subsequent shift in ownership.
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Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.
So long as the world stands meekly dumb before such questions, shall this nation proclaim its ignorance and unhallowed prejudices by denying freedom of opportunity to those who brought the Sorrow Songs to the Seats of the Mighty?
Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.