They tell the bloody story of the terrible miscarriage of the "Reconstruction policy;" they show how cruel men can be under conditions favorable to unbridled license, undeterred by the strong arm of constituted authority; they show how helpless the freed people were; how ignorant, how easily led by unscrupulous adventurers _pretending to be friends_ and how easily murdered and overawed by veterans inured to the dangers and the toils of war; and, lastly, they show how powerless was the national government to protect its citizens' rights, specifically defined by the Federal constitution.

_Was_, do I say?
It is as powerless to day! In this brief review, then, of the history and present political condition of the American Negro I cannot omit, though I shall not detail, the horrors of the Ku Klux period.

They are a link in the chain: and though today's links are different in form and guise, _the chain is the same_.

Let the reader, then, be a little patient at being reminded of things which he has perhaps forgotten..