The Scribe

The Scribe Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: The Scribe Read Online Free PDF
Author: Matthew Guinn
General Sherman left our fair city in ruins, Atlanta’s treasury had in it the grand sum of a dollar sixty-five,” Grady said, nodding to the rueful chuckles around the room for a moment before smiling and adding, “and that was in Confederate currency, gentlemen.”
    Grady held his hands out for quiet.
    â€œOur city was then overrun by Reconstruction. You know the story well: scalawags, carpetbaggers, and Radical Republicansdictated the lives and fortunes of white southerners anxious for peace and the return to prosperity. When the earnest Atlantan sought an honest government and the opportunity to regain his fortunes, his beseeching was answered with an upstart government riddled with corruption. Graft and embezzlement, even outright extortion, became the rule of the day. Alongside the Radicals, Negroes came to hold high office, woefully unprepared for such office in the best of cases, illiterate to the point of imbecility in the worst.”
    And the old guard of the Ring, Canby thought, found itself on the outside for the first time. He studied the faces around the table, how they followed Grady’s account of their ouster. They must have felt like they’d been gelded.
    â€œThe siege of Atlanta had been terrible, the burning of our city the most trying of tribulations,” Grady went on. “But we soon learned that the worst was not over. Our darkest hour stretched out into a day, then into a night.
    â€œBut as we know that every night has its dawn, so came a new era for Atlanta. The men we came to call the Redeemers roused themselves to collective action and accomplished in a few short months what would have taken years had they not been moved, together, by the Atlanta Spirit. And the new constitution of 1877 set things right once again.”
    Canby grimaced at the mention of ’77. He couldn’t help himself.
    â€œThe Negro, the scalawag, the Radical, were swept out of office and white southerners once again claimed their birthright. Many of those good Atlantans are gathered here, in this room, tonight.”
    Grady paused long enough to take a sip of tea. The waiters came forward again, removing the tureens and replacing them with plates of oysters. They handled the china almost silently and Canby wondered what they were making of the speech.
    â€œAnd now we face a new challenge that promises further glorious results,” Grady resumed. “Our International Cotton Exposition was conceived on a scale unseen thus far in the United States, and particularly in the South. It is the South’s first world fair. We have set aside nineteen acres in Oglethorpe Park for the site. We are completing twenty-seven buildings on those acres, including a model cotton factory that is to be thoroughly modern, down to the latest items of technology—the newest gins, the freshest patents. We have sold nearly two hundred thousand dollars of stock in the exposition, including a pledge of two thousand dollars from our friend William Tecumseh Sherman. There is even talk—this should not leave this room, gentlemen—that General Sherman might make a personal appearance at the exposition. All of this accomplished in one hundred working days. Gentlemen, that number alone speaks volumes about Atlanta. One hundred days .
    â€œSo I urge you not to despair over the state of the I.C.E. at this early hour of the exposition. Though we are on the eve of our debut, and our hopes have thus far exceeded our returns, we have no cause for despair. I say it is time once again to summon the Atlanta Spirit and save the hour.”
    There was only the sound of silverware for a moment after Grady sat down. Canby pushed his dish of oysters away. Slowly, a small man with spectacles and a black mustache rose and gently placed his folded napkin on the table.
    â€œI cannot match Mister Grady’s oratory, so I will try to stick with simple facts,” he said in an accent too clipped and swift to be
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