They were food fo' powder, but I always reckoned they
hindered more'n they helped. For the 'Cracker,' however, the war meant
everythin'. It placed him side by side with the Southern gentleman, it
strengthened the color line, an' jes' enough o' them made good to show
the others thar was a chance fo' them, too."
"Then they started in to improve right after the war, did they?"
The Kentuckian shook his head negatively.
"No," he said, "at first they were far worse off than befo' because the
Freedman's Bureau an' the carpet-baggers made trouble right an' lef'.
The No'th had a fine chance, but the carpet-baggers were jes' blind to
everythin' excep' the negro, an' the po' white was jes' as shabbily
treated by the No'th as he had be'n by the South. Now that everybody is
seein' that yo' can't make a negro jes' the same as a white man by
givin' him a vote, thar's a chance fo' the po' white. I reckon the
'Cracker' as a 'Cracker' is goin' to be extinct pretty soon, an' the
South is goin' to be proud o' the stock it once despised. Atlanta is the
fastes' growin' city in the South, an' Atlanta is jes' full o' men whose
folks weren't much more'n 'Crackers.
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