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by
WILLIAM J. ROBERTSON

BONI AND LIVERIGHT
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
1927] ERGO ERG VARARURRRRRUDRPDRRPRRRPROPPORPDREE SREP REEL OARS EREORDUTREAPACREREOAI AWARE AEE PURER TPAEEREREREES|

   

Copyright, 1927, by
BonlI AND LIVERIGHT, INC.

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Printed in the United States of AmericaTo the Memory of

MAJOR PEACHY GILMER BRECKINRIDGE
OF VIRGINIA, 1835-1864,
AN ANTI-SECESSIONIST WHO DIED IN THE
CONFEDERATE GRAY,
THIS VOLUME Is INSCRIBED.

Magna est veritas, et praevalebitTODRRRRCRERERRRODROREREDRPPRRPOEROO RAED OEE, TOSPEPRSPOROPRUOR RR ODEOURUAPAEPAP ARERR AESFOREWORD

A complete history of the South’s struggles from the
ruins of war waste and poverty to her present economic
eminence is too encyclopedic to be confined within the
limits of one volume. The purpose of these chapters,
therefore, is merely to present a broad view of the lead-
ing factors, as the author sees them, which have shaped,
and are continuing to shape, the section’s notable political
and religious solidarity, and to discuss the part the South
is playing in the life of the Nation to-day.PORLAC UPD UASARUOHOORPONPOROODROPPSPOORERRESDEORORED DA: " PURER URRUARAPRUADAER ERE PPURRARPRORREPOPPRORARSPODPORESOAORECHAPTER

I

II
III
IV
V

VI
VII
Vill
IX

XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX

GENESIS

ConFLICT .
RECONSTRUCTION

Ku Kuivux .

THE NEGRO

WHITE SUPREMACY .
tHe “BIBLE BELT. -
THE OnE Law .
Soc1AL CONDITIONS
EDUCATION

THE PREss

GREAT AND NEAR-GREAT .

In CONGRESS

‘TYPES

LITERATURE
Neo-Ku-K.ivux .
THE TARIFF
EcoNnoMIc PROGRESS .

THE FuTuRE

APpPENDIX—THE SOUTH IN 1928? .

   
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
  
   

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260
273
289THE CHANGING SOUTHTORREPRTTERUPERAP ATER OTRO STEER IP RTAPADUIPIPATAPRERUAUESURRAT PRGA ETS ERP REEDCHAPTER I

GENESIS

The Solid South is still loyal to three fundamental at-
titudes,—or fetishes, if you will,—which for more than
three score years have made her a nation within a nation.
And yet, withal, she has, during that time, passed through
a marvelous transformation which, if she did not possess
these attitudes, would make her as typically American as
any other part of America. An ineffable charm she once
possessed is to be found in her borders no more. The
fragrance of the old roses of romance and chivalry which
once haunted her mountains and meadows and seas is
gone. Even her famous old-time hospitality has given
way to new manners and customs. At last she has, as her
business and industrial leaders like to put it, “come into
her own.” In a section of the country where the very
term “evolution” not so long ago was anathema to many
of her spiritual leaders, evolution has raised her into new
and amazing spheres of economic advancement.

Skylines that once pictured ancestral trees, to-day bear
the outlines of factory stacks and skyscrapers. Hills and
meadows that once knew only the deer and fox and the
paths of the lonely mountain folk, support roadbeds of
trunk line railroads and great highway systems. Vast
fields that lay for centuries uncultivated now yield most

of the foodstuffs that feed America. And acres of earth,
IPPUmPeMMLATTVVURADVSOOOSO0SDEEREAOAEIPOOEODOOOOCEOREEDSEEECREOR OEE R EO REL

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

2 THE CHANGING SOUTH

that for so many years appeared to have no value, yield

) the ores that largely supply the nation’s mechanical needs.

By a long, slow, painful process the Solid South has

| awakened from her old time lethargy and backwardness,
and has built out of the ashes of war-ruin a new South
that matches any other section in the country to-day, eco-
nomically and culturally.

This change has been marked by unparalleled courage
| and persistence and vision. But with her progress agri-
Ne culturally, industrially, commercially, mechanically and
Py culturally, she loyally retains a trinity of deep-rooted con-
Victions which are as much a part of her life now as they
were the hour Lee surrendered his ragged troops to Grant
in the little village at Appomattox.

The South is still solid politically. She is still solid in
her love for the “Lost Cause.” And she is still solid
in refusing to recognize the rights of the Negro race
which the Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitu-
tion gave it. Perhaps it will be generations before she
consents to give up these three remaining marks of her
old faith; or she may never give them up. No man
knows. In any event, it should be of interest to many
f Americans, in view of the prominent, though ineffectual
part, the South has played in National politics in recent

years, to review the reasons why she has remained loyal
for so long to one political tenet, why she has remembered
with such devotion a defeated cause, and why she appears
to be doing the Negro a grave injustice, while in other
ways she has changed with the ever changing world
around her.GENESIS 3

The average American knows without being told that
since the seceded States were readmitted to the Union in
the early 70’s the South, with the exception of Tennessee,
has remained in the Democratic columns as regularly as
there have been national elections. He probably has
heard of the organizations of the Confederate Veterans,
Sons of Veterans and Daughters of the Confederacy,
which are living echoes of an unforgotten era of valor
and sacrifice. And there certainly is not an adult Ameri-
can living who has not heard the political spellbinders
quadrennially denounce the South for “nullifying” the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitu-
tion, thereby denying the Negro his civil rights and his
right to vote. No logic, no humanitarian appeal, no
amount of judicial reasoning for more than three score
years has succeeded in making the South do otherwise;
and probably never will. It is to describe the reasons for
her persistent solidarity in these things and to review her
remarkable growth and potentialities that this volume is
written.

Until the year 1900 there was not a great deal of
change in the South, economically or otherwise, to distin-
guish her from the South of 1861-1865. This was be-
cause she was slow to feel the influences of the economic
forces which have made the past half a century one of
the most amazing periods in the world’s history. Grad-
ually, however, these influences began to be felt, as they
were felt elsewhere; and it was inevitable that the South
finally should fall into line. Her vast natural resources
and initiative and energy enabled her to catch step eco-4 THE CHANGING SOUTH

nomically, commercially and industrially with her North-
ern neighbors. In a most astonishing way she has risen
out of the wilderness of waste and poverty in which the
Civil War left her; and between 1880 and 1927 has built
for herself a territory that offers all that is to be desired
materially by the modern man.

Within her borders are climates unexcelled and scenery
that matches Switzerland’s in beauty. According to one’s
tastes one can find in the Southland health-giving moun-
tains, great stretches of fine sea beaches, beautiful river
valleys, rolling hills and plains that beckon to the travel-
ers of the world. Beneath these varying terrains are to be
found resources whose value is enough to maintain the
Nation for centuries without the aid of other sections of
the Union. Added to these she is able to offer all the
mechanical comforts and pleasures that any other portion
of America can offer. Her economic growth has been
colossal; her industrial expansion has been amazing; but
with it all she is static politically, and until recently has
been woefully backward culturally; and now let us ex-
amine the reasons why.

The Solid South, as it is constituted to-day, is composed
of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Geor-
gia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina
and Tennessee, in the order in which they seceded from
the Union. At the outbreak of the conflict Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were slaveholding
states, but they did not secede. In 1863 the western
counties of Virginia decided that they would cast their
lot with the Federal Government and formed the StateGENESIS 5

of West Virginia. Since the war, however, West Vir-
ginia, Kentucky and Maryland have considered them-
selves as a part of what is known as the South, while
Delaware has allowed herself to be rated as a Northern
state, and Missouri looks upon herself as a Middle West-
ern Commonwealth.

The Solid South was born of a struggle that began
with the colonization of America early in the seventeenth
century, a struggle between the South and New Eng-
land, which passed through various forms. First it was
economic rivalry; then it was political rivalry; and finally
it grew into bitter differences over the question of social
reform. One led inevitably to the other, and all were
interwoven. Virginia and New England were settled by
the same kind of stock,—the English,—within thirteen
years of each other; and from the year 1640 down to
the outbreak of the Civil War intense rivalries and jeal-
ousies were manifested. There arose differences in prin-
ciples of politics; there were differences in climate and
soil, differences in social conditions and in the general
circumstances of the people; and these differences be-
came wider and wider until when the anti-slavery move-
ment was at its height, it required but little urging on
the part of the radical abolitionists to precipitate warfare.
The real frontier between the North and South from
1640 until the outbreak of the war was between Massa-
chusetts and Virginia. These two States became vigorous
rivals in the fields of politics and culture. It was Massa-
chusetts that broke up what was known as the “Virginia
dynasty,” the period of presidents, and it was Massachu-RUT UT TTR DROREHRMRRAOPOROOUSOOOIOPORERREOO REO RAOR TITTETITTDTRTT TTA TTT LTTE

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

| 6 THE CHANGING SOUTH

setts that sent the first Union troops against the Southern-
ers. From the close of the War of 1812 until 1860 she
held a distinguished place in national life and politics; so
it was natural that she should be foremost in the struggle
against slavery. Upon Massachusetts, particularly the
radical abolitionists in her borders, and upon South Caro-
lina, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, must be
placed the responsibility of the Civil War.

The underlying causes of the Civil War were the doc-
trine of State sovereignty and slavery; but slavery was
the occasion rather than the actual cause of the conflict.
The slavery struggle,—that is, the serious anti-slavery
movement,—covered a period of twenty-eight years, from
1849 to 1877. The period from 1849 to 1861 marked
the quarrel between the North and South over the ques-
tion, in which the radical abolitionists played the leading
part; and from 1861 to 1877 were the periods of the
Civil War and Reconstruction.

But the issue of State sovereignty, and the right to
secede, went back to the American Revolution itself; and
both Northern and Southern leaders, at different times,
supported it. There are a number of examples of the
support of State sovereignty in Europe. In the year 1309
the Swiss cantons withdrew from the Empire and formed
a Confederacy, from which, in 1843-1847, the Catholic
cantons seceded and formed a new confederacy called the
Sonderbund, which was crushed in the war that followed.
In 1523 Sweden seceded from the Kalmarian formed in
1397 of Denmark, Sweden and Norway; and in 1814
Norway seceded and entered into a Union with Sweden,

entieeGENESIS 7
from which, in the same year, it attempted to secede,
but was forcibly prevented. Norway, however, accom-
plished a peaceful secession from the Union in 1905 and
resumed her independent status. In 1848 and 1849 Hun-
gary attempted to withdraw from the Union with Aus-
tria, but the attempt was defeated. Prussia and other
north German states withdrew in 1866-1868 from the
German Confederation and formed a new one. The in-
stance of a successful secession is that of Panama, which
seceded from the Republic of Colombia in 1905.

In the days following the American Revolution the
colonies held that each State became sovereign by virtue
of its successful revolution against England. Under the
Crown there had been no political connection between the
colonies; and the treaty of 1783 recognized them as “free
sovereign and independent states.” The Articles of Con-
federation recognized this sovereignty; and the theory of
State sovereignty was maintained in the convention that
framed the Federal Constitution in 1787.

Threats of secession were made by leaders in New Eng-
land as far back as 1790, and again prior to and during
the War of 1812. Secession was generally looked upon as
the most potent remedy for Federal aggression; and no-
table expressions of State sovereignty were those con-
tained in the famous Virginia and Kentucky resolutions,
which Jefferson is said to have drafted; in the Hartford
Convention of 1814; and in the South Carolina nullifica-
tion ordinance of 1832. Jefferson condemned what he
termed “scission,” but some of his writings, although theyre PADRRRRRURURARRRDARARAORREDOROREAPRORDREA ERROR DEEL

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
   

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8 THE CHANGING SOUTH

often reveal contradictions and paradoxes, admit that se-
cession is a remedy of last resort.

With this political theory rooted in the minds of
Southern leaders it was not surprising that the agitation
against slavery prompted the Southern states to look upon
secession as their right and destiny. The greatest single
force, however, which led the South into this line of rea-
soning was John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. Born of
Scotch-Irish descent in 1782, Calhoun formed one of the
famous triumvirate—himself, Webster and Clay. He
was not the orator that Webster was and he did not pos-
sess Clay’s magnetism; but he surpassed both men in bold-
ness and in the vigor with which he reached political
conclusions and adhered to them. At different times he
was Vice-president, cabinet officer and Senator; and from
1832 until his death in 1850, he devoted his life to what
he believed was the protection of Southern interests.

Calhoun not only preached State sovereignty, but se-
cession as well. Both political ideas had been advanced
years before he was born; but it remained for the South
Carolinian to voice them analytically and logically to such
a degree that his influence, long after his death, gave
South Carolina the assurance that she needed when she
plunged the Nation into war. In 1832 South Carolina,
at Calhoun’s instigation, “nullified” the tariff acts passed
by Congress in 1828 and 1832. President Andrew Jack-
son is pictured by historians as having taken drastic steps
to rebuke her and if necessary hold her physically in sub-
jection; but the truth is that it was Calhoun who won
the day by offering a resolution in the Senate whichGENESIS 9

brought about the enactment of a compromise tariff act
which satisfied South Carolina and she withdrew her
nullification ordinance. Only the gods themselves know
what would have been the result if the compromise had
not been passed and if Jackson had persisted in his action
against the State. It is not unreasonable to believe that
with the sympathy other Southern states had for South
Carolina’s doctrine at the time, the Civil War would
have come in 1832 instead of in 1861. In any event, if
the South had won the war which finally came, Calhoun
would have been to her people what St. Patrick is to
the Irish.

In considering the Calhoun or—as it proved to be—the
South Carolina school of political philosophy, it should
be remembered that in the matter of State sovereignty,
the wish was the father to the idea, in that the maintenance
of State sovereignty meant the maintenance of slavery.
While sovereignty did not depend upon slavery, slavery
certainly depended upon sovereignty, so the. philosophy
was a selfish one with South Carolina. Calhoun’s con-
tention that the separate States were sovereign before and
after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, that the
Union was purely voluntary, and that the whole people,
or the people of other States, had no right to maintain
or enforce the Union against any State, was overruled
irrevocably by the result of the Civil War. It 1s note-
worthy, however, that States and political parties to-day
are undecided as to the exact location of sovereignty;
although the general belief seems to incline to Madison’s
view that the States were sovereign before the adoption

  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  

TES Fer —IO THE CHANGING SOUTH

of the Constitution, and that they gave up a part of their
sovereignty to the Federal Government. Supreme Court
decisions under Chief Justice Marshall and under later
chief justices have sustained this view; but the so-called
centralization of power in Washington, at every session of
Congress and with each succeeding election campaign,
brings up anew the question of State sovereignty, or
State’s rights, as it sometimes is called.

South Carolina early asserted her sovereignty. At the
convention in Philadelphia in 1787, when the Constitution
was drafted, the sentiments of the framers, including
notably Mr. Jefferson, were against slavery; but South
Carolina and Georgia refused to join the Union unless
slavery was recognized. It was the persistency of South
Carolina, indeed, that prompted an agreement for the
mutual arrest and return of fugitive slaves. So strongly
opposed to any unfavorable action in so far as slavery
was concerned was South Carolina, that the best that the
Convention could do was to provide for a cessation of
the slave trade after twenty years. Those persons who
have observed how the modern bootlegger plies his trade
and how illicit liquor is smuggled into the States, will
realize how much this provision served to reduce the seri-
ousness of the slavery issue. Instead, when the slave
trade had been interdicted, after the twenty-year period,
the slaveholding commonwealths were all the more de-
termined to maintain slavery, and the abolitionists were
equally as determined to oppose it.

South Carolina unquestionably was the hoyden State
of the South. At three different times she would haveGENESIS II
seceded from the Union. First in 1787; again in 1832,
under Calhoun’s leadership; and again in 1850, if the
famous Compromise measures of that year had not been
passed at the instigation of Webster and Clay. Appar-
ently she was as bent on seceding from the Union at some
time as women nowadays are bent on getting divorces
when they find they have married disadvantageously.
The State early in the seventeenth century had been set-
tled by a strange mixture of people—the English, the
Scotch-Irish and the French Protestants. Intermarriages
brought into being a race that second to none—not even
the fiery Georgia crackers—is the hottest tempered of all
the folk in the Southland.

This being true, it is not surprising that the abolition-
ists, many of whom were well-meaning reformers, with a
flair for humanitarianism which carried them beyond the
bounds of truth and decency, had little difficulty in driv-
ing South Carolina to precipitate the bloody conflict which
tore the heart of the Union for four long years.

It is interesting to review briefly the election campaign
of 1860 and Mr. Lincoln’s utterances immediately fol-
lowing his election, and see what a flimsy excuse South
Carolina had when Governor W. H. Gist of that State
in 1860 sent his famous letter to the governors of other
Cotton States, asking codperation in the event South Caro-
lina should decide to secede. Lincoln’s platform in 1860
demanded the exclusion of slavery in the territories. The
slaveholding States were no more affected by such a pro-
nouncement than they were in 1787.. Slave trading a
half century before had been outlawed, so the questionTThT
EEaL!

   

12 THE CHANGING SOUTH

of bringing more slaves into the slave States, or driving
them out of the slave States, was not an issue. But this

‘ was the South’s fear—or apparently South Carolina’s

fear: the free territories and the free States were becom-
ing greater in number than the slave States, and the
balance of power politically and economically was grow-
ing against the South. So in finally judging South Caro-
lina’s action it can be truthfully said that she had no
plausible reason for seceding in so far as Mr. Lincoln’s
election and his attitude toward slavery were concerned.

In his first inaugural address, President Lincoln strove
earnestly to allay the fears of the South, and quoted from
a campaign speech he had made the year before, in which
he said among other things, “I have no purpose, directly
or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful
right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” This
should have been convincing, but—

The abolitionists—William Lloyd Garrison, Elijah
Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner and John
Brown, not to mention Harriet Beecher Stowe, had in-
flamed the minds of the Northerners with stories of cruel-
ties and atrocities perpetrated on the slaves by their own-
ers. To their hymns of hate were added the chorics of
Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier and Whitman, while essay-
ists like William E. Channing and R. W. Emerson en-
couraged their deadly work. So South Carolina assumed
the right to believe that in spite of what Lincoln said the
abolitionists, sooner or later, would force the Southern
States to give up their slaves. It would appear now thatGENESIS 13

State sovereignty had faded into obscurity; and so it had,
for although there were many varying forces accumulat-
ing through the years to bring on the Civil War, it was
slavery and nothing else that prompted South Carolina
to plunge her sister States into the conflict. Those States
which followed, I believe, went into the war in the belief
that they must uphold the doctrine of State sovereignty
—but not South Carolina. In Virginia where an intelli-
gent political and social leadership had been maintained
since early colonial days, all, or nearly all her leaders, sol-
diers and statesmen alike, had opposed slavery, at one
time or another. Washington was against it; Jefferson
tried to put an end to it in his State and in the Nation;
and “Stonewall” Jackson and Robert E. Lee, two of the
world’s greatest soldiers and noblest of men, opposed
slavery. In a letter written from Texas, to a relative in
Virginia, dated December 27, 1856, Lee declared:

“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age who
will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a
moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its dis-
advantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than
to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly en-
listed in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more
deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeas-
urably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically,
and socially... . How long their servitude may be
necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Provi-
dence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the
mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the
storm and tempest of fiery controversy. . . . While we
see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is14. THE CHANGING SOUTH

still onward, and give it our prayers, let us leave the
progress as well as the results in the hand of Him who
sees the end, who chooses to work by slow influences, and
with whom a thousand years are but a single day. Al-
though the abolitionist must know this—must know that
he had neither the right nor the power of operating, ex-
cept by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must
not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he
may not approve the mode by which Providence accom-
plishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that
the reasons he gives for interference in matters ‘he has no
concern with, holds good for every kind of interference
with his neighbor—still, I fear he will persevere in his
evil course.”

Here we have what should have been the South’s spir-
itual platform, and its political platform as well. But
South Carolina did not see it that way. And no altruistic
motive was hers when she seceded. Her motive plainly
was, as I have indicated, an altogether selfish one—the
maintenance of the institution of slavery; and the blood
of the Civil War is on her head as much as it is on
the heads of the abolitionists. Calhoun’s influence had
taken root, so it was natural that even so noble a man
as Robert E. Lee left the Union which had made him a
soldier, and offered his sword to his State in what had
become the South’s abiding belief in the doctrine of State
sovereignty. Lee’s attitude typified the loftier, but mis-
taken conception of the South. Forty-five years after the
war ended, Capt. Robert E. Lee, the Confederate chief-
tain’s grandson, in an address before a State convention of
Confederate veterans in the city of Roanoke, Virginia,GENESIS 15

declared, “We did not fight for what we thought was
right; we fought for what we kvew was right.” And so
many in the Solid South believe to this day.

Meanwhile, what of Lincoln? His conciliatory words
in the first inaugural address, had been taken seriously
by the anti-secessionists in the South. They believed he
meant what he said; but time brings many changes, and
Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery went through a radical
change in two years. In September, 1863, he issued his
famous Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves
in the rebellious States. How could he consistently do this
in view of his avowed intention in his first inaugural not to
interfere “directly or indirectly with the institution of
slavery in the States where it exists”? The answer is that
he was guided by military exigencies, and not by humani-
tarian motives. The collapse of McClellan’s Richmond
campaign, according to Nicolay and Hay in their “Life of
Lincoln,” prompted him to consider measures which ulti-
mately materialized in the Emancipation Proclamation.’
The Emancipation was not prompted by the noble senti-
ments which the abolitionists, in later years, attributed to
Lincoln, and which the Negroes in America have since
been led to believe. As Nicolay and Hay, his authorita-
tive biographers, say, “We are justified in the inference
that his foresight had perceived and estimated the great
and decisive element of the strength which lay as yet un+
touched and unappropriated in the slave population of
the South.” * The wording of the proclamation is unmis-

1 Page 120, Vol. 6, Nicolay and Hay’s “Life.”
2 [bid.16 THE CHANGING SOUTH

takable. He freed the slaves in the South “as a fit and
necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion”;
and he justified himself by saying that it was “upon mili-
tary necessity” that he invoked the “considerate judgment
of mankind and the gracious favor of God.”

A Southern orator some years ago, speaking of the men
of the war period, exclaimed, “There were giants in those
days!” Well might he have said there were misguided
men in those days; for it is certain, in the light of history
as we are enabled to review it at this distance, that South
Carolina could have prevented the Civil War, in the
first place, and that Lincoln probably could have pre-
vented it if he had been wiser, and even if he could not
have prevented it, he could have lived up to the eco-
nomic and political philosophy laid down in his first in-
augural and have let the South solve her slavery problem
as Lee suggested. There were giants in those days; but
giants who had a clumsy way of doing things. And yet,
if they had not existed, there would be no Solid South
as we know that section to-day.CHAPTER II

CONFLICT

At the time of Lincoln’s election in 1860, South Caro-
lina was the third State in the Union in wealth in pro-
portion to her population. Her assessed value of property
was $489,000,000, while the combined values of Rhode
Island and New Jersey, two of the North’s leading man-
ufacturing States, were $421,000,000, giving South Caro-
lina a lead of $68,000,000. As was stated in the preced-
ing chapter her motive for seceding from the Union was
a selfish one or—to use a milder term—an economic one.
She had three main considerations: the Negro as prop-
erty, the Negro as a form of labor, and cotton.

Lincoln was elected in November and could not as-
sume office until the following March. Events between
election day and inauguration day occupied the attention
of the Nation. Determined to secede, the South Carolina
Legislature called a State convention which on Decem-
ber 20 unanimously passed an “ordinance of secession,”
repealing the acts by which the State had ratified the Con-
stitution and its amendments, and dissolving the “union
now subsisting between South Carolina and other States,
under the name of the ‘United States of America.’” Steps
were taken to prepare for a conflict and the convention ad-
journed. Lincoln in his home in Springfield now knew

that he faced the gravest problem that had ever con-
17

PUTTES EPR PATA "18 THE CHANGING SOUTH

fronted an American President-elect. But South Caro-
lina’s secession was not yet Lincoln’s problem. It was
President Buchanan’s. A man of unquestioned honesty
and of the highest patriotism, Buchanan did all that any
human being could have done in the circumstances, to pre-
vent a collision.

In his annual message to Congress of December, 1860,
he argued that a State had no legal right to secede, but
denied that the Federal Government had any power
forcibly to prevent it. The same logic is advanced to this
day in connection with decrees of the United States Su-
preme Court. It is held that such decrees cannot be en-
forced by the Court; and its decrees can be carried out
only by what amounts to moral suasion. Buchanan con-
tinued, until the day he relinquished the Presidency, to
work for peace. He supported the famous Crittenden
Compromise which recognized the right of new States to
determine the question of slavery themselves and pro-
hibited Congress from abolishing the interstate slave trade
through the exercise of its commerce powers. This might
have prevented the war had it been adopted but it was
defeated in a Congressional committee, by the abolition-
ist members. Then followed another effort to maintain
peace by means of the Peace Conference in February,
1861. Delegates from the Northern and Border States
met in Washington, upon the call of the State of Vir-
ginia, and proposed Constitutional amendments similar
to those proposed in the Crittenden Compromise. None
of the far Southern States sent delegates to the confer-
ence, however, and nothing came of it, although BuchananCONFLICT 19

gave it his warmest support. He disapproved of any
military gesture of any kind on the part of the Govern-
ment at this time, and was particularly opposed to Major
Anderson’s famous removal of troops from Fort Moul-
trie to Fort Sumter in December, 1860. Buchanan, of
course, knew that South Carolina was waiting like an
angry cat to spring at the Governments throat. After
the February Peace Conference, the month which would
bring Lincoln into the White House, dragged on. Con-
gress did little or nothing except to admit Kansas as a free
State and adopt the Morrill tariff law. A tariff law had
been enacted in 1857 enlarging the free trade list and
lowering the average duty to about 20 per cent. The
Morrill Act increased the tariff of 1857 about one-third.
This did not serve to create a better feeling in South
Carolina where the tariff issue had been almost as bitterly
fought as the slavery issue.

Abraham Lincoln entered upon the duties of the Presi-
dency on March 4, 1861, facing the greatest crisis that
had ever risen in the Nation, surpassing in potentialities
the American Revolution and all the conflicts that fol-
lowed. He was untried, and little known by the mem-
bers of the Republican party in the North. In 1856 and
in the pre-convention campaign of 1860 the North had
accepted William H. Seward as the recognized leader of
the new party. Lincoln wisely made Seward his Secre-
tary of State, and the North naturally expected Seward to
be the leader and the brains of the Administration during
the national crisis. A college trained man, a man of cul-
ture and wide experience in statecraft, Seward had some20 THE CHANGING SOUTH

right for believing as much himself. But later events
proved that Lincoln’s personality and leadership were to
eclipse those of all the members of his cabinet. Salmon
P. Chase, of Ohio, ambitious and temperamental, was
Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsyl-
vania, a man whom later events proved, possessed ques-
tionable integrity, was Secretary of War for one year be-
fore the famous and pugnacious Edwin M. Stanton took
over that portfolio; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, who
although not a technically trained man, was one of Lin-
coln’s most efficient cabinet members and handled with
great skill the most difficult problems of the war, was Sec-
retary of the Navy; Edward Bates, of Missouri, a man
of little fame and consequence, was Attorney General;
Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, the first Federal ofh-
cial to establish the free city delivery, the money order
system and the use of railway mail cars, was Postmaster
General; and Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, a man of little
or no prominence, was Secretary of the Interior.

When the Lincoln Administration went into power, six
more States had seceded from the Union. Following
South Carolina’s example, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia and Louisiana had seceded during the month of
January, and Texas followed in February. The other
Southern States were biding their time. Virginia, par-
ticularly, was trying to maintain peace. In the election of
1860 Virginia had returned a majority of Unionist elec-
tors against the secessionist candidates, Breckinridge and
Lane. Many of her large plantation owners voted for
the continuance of the Union, while the small slave-own-CONFLICT 21

ers supported secession. Her best minds were staunch
Unionists and predominated in the extra session of the
Legislature called by Governor Wise in February, 1861.
It was not until after Sumter had been fired upon and the
Government at Washington had called upon the State to
supply its quota of armed men to suppress the “insurrec-
tion” in the other Southern States, that Virginia seceded.
Her motive for secession was purely one of the mainte-
nance of State sovereignty.

From March 4 until April 14, Lincoln and his cabinet
were occupied with two great problems: How to maintain
peace between the North and South and how to prepare
for war in the event there was to be a conflict. He had
warned the South of the determination of the Govern-
ment to defend its authority, and to hold forts and places
yet in its possession; but he declared his intention not to
invade, subjugate or oppress the seceding States. “You
can have no conflict,” he said, “without being yourself
the aggressors.” But seven States were out of the Union,
and the theory that the Government could still hold its
forts and other properties within their borders, was one
with which the seceded States did not agree.

There now came a time when the statesmanship of Lin-
coln and Seward were to be contrasted; and an event,
which has been given little attention in the histories of the
Civil War, is one of the most interesting incidents in Lin-
coln’s official career. Determined to maintain peace, al-
most to the point of desperation, Lincoln, late in March,
1861, addressed informal memorandums to each mem-
ber of his cabinet, asking them to state their opinion on20 THE CHANGING SOUTH

how the crisis confronting the Government could best be
handled. There were varying opinions; but of all the
idiotic proposals that have ever come from the pen of an
American statesman, Seward’s was the rarest. On April
I,—a date to conjure with in view of his ridiculous plan,
—Seward in a memorandum to Lincoln proposed that
America precipitate a world war to save the Union! He
suggested a conflict in which America was to oppose most
of Europe, with himself as director of the enterprise.
The conduct of Spain toward Santo Domingo, and France
toward Mexico, and the alleged attitude of England and
Russia toward the seceded States were to be the grounds
for precipitating this gigantic conflict. American agents
were to be sent into Canada, Mexico and Central America
to arouse hostility against Europe.

There is no evidence that Lincoln replied to Seward’s
proposal. Silence was certainly the best answer he could
have given to a scheme which had the earmarks of the
dream of an opium eater. Even if a world war could
have been precipitated, it was now too late. The Union
already was divided; and all that remained to be done
was South Carolina’s hot-headed act—the bombardment
and capture of Fort Sumter on April 14, 186r.

The hand of Fate had written the Nation’s destiny.
Lincoln’s call for volunteers was the signal for the seces-
sion in turn of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and
Tennessee. By June 8, 1861, when the last named State
had seceded, the Solid South had come into being and was
destined to survive a great conflict and the desperate daysCONFLICT 23

of reconstruction, and to become the most provincial of
the four great sections of the present Union.

When the Civil War began the South had a population
of approximately 12,000,000 persons, of whom 4,000,000
were slaves. In the North there were about 19,000,000
inhabitants. There were in the United States at the time
about 4,000,000 foreign born, the majority of whom had
emigrated to America since 1840. Irish peasants, num-
bering about 780,000 arrived in the first decade, followed
by more than 900,000 in the next. Political disturbances
and economic difficulties had led 1,386,000 Germans to
migrate to this country between 1840 and 1860. ‘These
immigrants went to the Northern States, particularly to
the factory towns of New England, to the mines and
foundries of Pennsylvania, and into the new West and
Northwest in search of Government land.

On the other hand, the only foreign element the South
had were Africans. In the ten years preceding the Civil
War slave-traders were so bold that they smuggled ship-
loads of slaves through the secluded bayous of the Gulf
Coast and Florida, and through the port of Mobile. It
has been estimated that between 1808, the year when
slave-trading was interdicted in America, and 1860, ap-
proximately 270,000 slaves were smuggled into the
United States.

The North strengthened by first-rate labor and excel-
lent man-power, between 1840 and 1860 had outstripped
the South economically. While the wealth of the North,
represented in farms, factories, shipping and railroads,
was more evenly divided among a more numerous popu-24 THE CHANGING SOUTH

lation, the planters of the South, because of their well-
nigh valueless slave labor and their dependence upon a
single crop,—cotton,—steadily were becoming impover-
ished, and were in a backward state, when the war broke
out. A contrast in how the agriculturists in the North and
South operated is an excellent example of the differences
between the two sections. Tillage by slave labor was
crude. The slaves, as a rule, were so untrustworthy and
ignorant that they could not handle the modern farm ma-
chinery of the day. A cheap wooden plow, drawn by a
mule or an ox, a hoe, and a broadax were the only imple-
ments with which they could be trusted. The North had
better machinery and better labor. In 1860 the average
value per acre of land in the South was forty-two cents,
while in the North it was ninety-four.

The taxable property of the South, according to the
census of 1860, was estimated at $5,000,000,000, of
which $2,000,000,000 represented slaves and $1,500,-
000,000 real estate, devoted mainly to the growing of
cotton. Northern property approximated $11,000,000,-
000, and consisted chiefly of manufacturing, mining and
commercial plants whose outputs easily could be con-
verted into implements of war.

The first Confederate States came into being at Mont-
gomery, Alabama, on February 8, 1861, when delegates
from the States which had seceded up to that time formed
a provisional constitution, chose Jefferson Davis and A.
H. Stephens, provisional president and vice-president re-
spectively, and established an army, treasury and other
governmental departments. It is interesting to note hereCONFLICT 25

that the constitution, which was adopted on March 11,
contained the Southern credo, which unto this day in some
measure, is looked upon by many Southerners as the fun-
damental principles upon which the Solid South is
founded. ‘The constitution, in the main, was patterned
after the Federal organic law; but its chief differences
from the Federal document lay in its maintenance of
State sovereignty, provision for cabinet seats in Congress,
the prevention of “bounties” or any protective features
in tariff; and it expressly provided that in all the terri-
tory belonging to the Confederacy, but lying without the
limits of the several States, “the institution of Negro
slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be
recognized and protected by Congress and by the Terri-
torial Government.” Nothing could have been more rev-
olutionary and defiant than this document; and probably
nothing could have more inflamed the North into a de-
termination to defeat the South’s purposes.

After Lincoln’s call for volunteers, and after Virginia
and Arkansas had seceded in April and May respectively,
the Provisional Government of the Confederacy estab-
lished its permanent capital at Richmond, Virginia, by an
act passed May 8. The Virginia capital’s importance
was due to its nearness to Washington, the material and
manufacturing resources concentrated in it, and to the
moral effect that the establishment of the capital there
would have on the South generally because of Virginia’s
long leadership in the nation’s political and military life.
From then on Virginia proved to be the battleground of
the Civil War and suffered more damage to property at26 THE CHANGING SOUTH

the hands of the Northern forces than any other State in
the South. It was on her soil that the first Manassas
campaign was prosecuted; the Peninsula battles were
fought within her borders; she bore the brunt of the sec-
ond Manassas and the bloody battles of Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville and the great Wilderness-Peters-
burg engagements. About 50,000 men were killed and
100,000 died of wounds and disease in Virginia alone.

When by June 8, North Carolina and Tennessee had
joined their lot with the other seceded States, the Con-
federacy, composed of eleven commonwealths, was pre-
pared to go through with the war in earnest. But wars
cannot be fought with courage alone. Fighting men must
be clothed and rationed and equipped; and the biggest
problem that lay before the Confederate Government was
the financing of the conflict.

Leaders of the South had every right to expect that
much of their expenses could be met through its custom
revenue, but the Federal navy’s successful blockade
stopped the South’s trade with foreign countries, so some
other method of raising funds had to be used. First the
individual States were directed to levy a direct property
tax of one-half of one per cent. and to turn over the pro-
ceeds to the Confederate treasury. But only $18,000,000
was raised by this tax, and many of the taxpayers made
their payments in State bonds of questionable value. The
only thing that was left to be done was to issue bonds, and
this was done to the tune of $15,000,000 at 8 per cent.
interest, secured by an export tax on cotton of one- -eighth
of a cent a pound. Southern bankers, particularly in NewCONFLICT 27

Orleans and Charleston, took up this issue, and placed all
the available specie in the Confederate treasury. The
money immediately was used abroad for military supplies.

A bond issue of $150,000,000 in 1862 was made pay-
able in produce. Asa result of this loan the Confederate
Government came into possession of quantities of cotton,
tobacco, wheat, rice, sugar and molasses, together with
$1,000,000 in paper currency. The commodities were
nothing more than a drug on the market. A foreign loan
of $150,000,000 was negotiated in 1863, the bonds being
made redeemable in cotton, and since cotton was selling
at famine prices in England and the Continent, these se-
curities sold without difficulty. But those Englishmen
who purchased Russian bonds prior to the revolution of
1917 will know how their fathers and grandfathers must
have desired to kick themselves where it would do the
most good for having accepted these famous Confederate
bonds.

Confederate leaders, in spite of their desperate finan-
cial plans, soon learned that but a fraction of the South’s
military expenditures could be met by these bond issues.
Then began the career of the Confederate dollar whose
pathetic history to-day is known throughout the world.
When the Confederacy resorted to credit money, what
with all the other unfavorable economic forces that had
oppressed it, it might have known that it was waging a
losing fight in the face of a successful blockade which the
North had effected and in the face of a far greater man-
power.

Treasury notes, redeemable within the year and bearing

   
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

aE

TS ———28 THE CHANGING SOUTH

interest at 3.65 per cent., were issued in March, 1861.
On an issue of April, 1862, the rate was raised to 7.3 per
cent. Notes, offering no interest and not redeemable till
“six months after the ratification of a peace treaty,” were
ordered at the same time. This currency was made re-
ceivable for taxes, but the Confederacy refrained from
declaring it legal tender in payment of private debts.

The issues of 1861 amounted to $30,000,000; and by
December, 1862, $450,000,000 had been circulated. In
1863 $150,000,000 was issued; and approximately the
same amount was issued respectively for the last two
years of the war. The total sum of all issues of Confed-
erate currency approximated a billion dollars. To this
gigantic sum must be added issues made by State govern-
ments, banks and private business firms.

Is it necessary to detail, as most historians have done,
the battles of the Civil War in the face of this inevitable
journey toward bankruptcy? Suffice it to say of the mili-
tary operations that the Northern troops first were re-
pelled in their invasion of Virginia. The Story of Bull
Run is a familiar one. Reviewing the military opera-
tions briefly, it is sufficient for the purposes of this volume
to say that after the first success in Virginia the Confed-
erate forces slowly were forced back in the West, where
the fall of Vicksburg marked their final fate. At the
same time Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg crushed the hopes
of the Southerners in the East. After these two events,
the moving finger of fate was writing the story of a hope-
less struggle against the persistent and successful cam-
paigns of Grant and Sherman.CONFLICT 29

But, as heroic as the Southerners were,—and there is no
denying that generally they were far better and more re-
sourceful fighters than the Northerners,—how could an
invaded South, blockaded on all sides and buried up to
its neck in an enormous unredeemable currency issue, hope
to meet with success? The depreciation of the currency
issues enumerated above, followed almost as soon as they
were put out. This was due to two important causes: in-
flation and the lack of confidence in their redemption.
In January, 1863, a gold dollar was worth three dollars in
Confederate paper. Twelve months later gold exchanged
for twenty-one dollars. And in January, 1865, it re-
quired fifty-three Confederate dollars to buy a gold dol-
lar. The Confederate dollar passed out of circulation
early in April, after the fall of Richmond. These famous
Confederate dollars were lost or destroyed or placed in
old attic trunks; and if you cast your eyes upon one in
a museum to-day you will be looking upon a factor which
probably as potently as Grant or Sherman, aided Mr.
Lincoln in subduing the hot-headed Southerners.

At Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, Gen-
eral Lee surrendered to General Grant; and within a
few weeks the Confederacy was at an end. In all the
annals of the wars of the world there is no more gallant
conqueror than General Grant on that April day. Con-
siderate of Lee throughout the whole procedure, he did
the one kindly thing, in making his terms of surrender,
that gave the South a fighting chance to recover from the
waste and destruction and despair that awaited the return

of her soldiers from the battlefields. The Confederate

Tae AR NEF30 THE CHANGING SOUTH

officers were permitted to sign paroles for themselves and
their men; and each soldier of the Southern army who
owned a horse or mule was permitted to retain it for
farming purposes. The Southern officers were permitted
to retain their side-arms and private horses and baggage.
Grant divined the struggle that lay before the impover-
ished South, and nobly he aided his former foes in the
only way that he could possibly have done, in beginning
their long and heartrending labor of rehabilitation.

The total number of enlistments in the Union army
was 2,688,523. The number of enlistments in the Con-
federate army was between 650,000 and 700,000. Ap-
proximately 300,000 men were killed on each side. It is
difficult to determine the exact cost of the war, but the
best sources available place the cost at $ 3,250,000,000 for
the North and $1,500,000,000 for the South; but these
figures do not include the incalculable property loss suf-
fered by the people of the South, including war damage
and the freeing of their slaves who had a property value.

The soldiers of the Confederacy once more took up
their lives where they had left off in 1861. The work of
rebuilding their homeland was a desperate task; but dur-
ing the more than three-score years since the close of the
war they have built a monument industrially and eco-
nomically that probably has no parallel in the world.
With all their achievement, though, the South continues
to find authority from the Central Government irksome.
In a letter dated August 24, 1865, General Lee, while
president of Washington College, wrote the trustees of
that institution, in part as follows:CONFLICT 31

“T think it the duty of every citizen, in the present
condition of the country, to do all in his power to aid in
the restoration of peace and harmony, and in no way to
oppose the policy of the State or General Government
directed to that object. It is particularly incumbent on
those charged with the instruction of the young to set
them an example of submission to authority .. .”

The young men of the South learned to maintain a
measure of peace and harmony; but submission to au-
thority does not include the recognition of what they con-
sider “those two damnable amendments,” the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth; and this, as has been said, is one of the
reasons why we still have the Solid South with us to-day.CHAPTER III

RECONSTRUCTION

If you go into the States of North and South Carolina
and Georgia, and particularly into South Carolina to-day,
and mention the name of General William Tecumseh
Sherman, it would be well for you to seek cover first,
and then if escape is not blocked, leave the section im-
mediately for the North. For Sherman is to this section
the incarnation of all the hated qualities of the “damned
Yankee.” In his famous march from Chattanooga to
Atlanta, which city he captured, thence to the sea at
Savannah and back northward through the Carolinas, all
that he left the people in this area was damage and
despair and a hate that has not died to this day. Railways
were destroyed, homes were burned, slaves were herded
away, supplies were taken, and the section was swept as
bare as if a gigantic broom had been used by a Titan. On
the morning of the 17th of February, General Sherman
and his army entered the city of Columbia, South Caro-
lina, on his return northward. That night a fire broke
out and destroyed most of the city, including church
buildings, business houses and homes. Sherman and his
officers denied that they had anything to do with it, but
to this day it is the belief in South Carolina that the hated
Sherman ordered the town to be fired. And the people

of Charleston have not forgotten how, on the same day,
32RECONSTRUCTION 33

they were compelled to flee the city after burning nearly
all their cotton and supplies.

It is but human for the people in the Carolinas and
Georgia to be bitter over the treatment they received from
Sherman; but their experiences were no worse in many
ways than the experiences of the Southerners in the Shen-
andoah valley, in Eastern Virginia, and in the Mississipp1
valley. In Virginia, particularly, and in other portions of
the South, towns were burned, bridges were wrecked, rail-
road tracks were torn up and plantations were so deprived
of their assets that they fell into ruin. Cotton, the only
marketable commodity the South had, had been used for
breastworks, or was confiscated or rendered unsalable.
Wealthy business men and plantation owners were impov-
erished by the collapse of Confederate currency and
bonds; the poorer classes of people were thrown into a
state of destitution that was tragic and heartrending.

One-third of the adult males of the white population
had fallen in battle or returned home incapacitated for
work. Land had depreciated to half its ante-bellum
value, and the capital needed to rebuild on the ashes of
ruin was as absent as were joy and hope in Southern
hearts. On top of all this ruin Lincoln had hurled upon
the backs of the South 4,000,000 free Negroes; and the
world’s history has no record of greater suffering than
was theirs for the first three or four years after the close
of the war. They suffered for want of food, clothing and
shelter, and thousands of them died of hunger and dis-
ease. The Freedmen’s Bureau, established by the Fed-
eral War Department, did much to help the former slaves34 THE CHANGING SOUTH

to become self-supporting, furnished them with supplies,
protected them against fraud at the hands of unscrupu-
lous white men, and would have done a great deal more
if local officials of the bureau had not been lacking in tact,
something which caused the enmity of the Southern white
men. The operations of the bureau ceased in 1870. But,
even with the work of the bureau, the problem of the
emancipated blacks became essentially the problem of the
South, because they had now become a part of the South’s
citizenry. And more than three-score years after the close
of the war, they are still the South’s chief problem, of
which more will be said later.

When the war had ended, the South was in the hands of
her conquerors; and the chief problem of the Federal
Government was the establishment of civil governments
and the restoration of suspended Federal relations in the
States which had seceded. The War Department, vigor-
ously urged on by the radical abolitionists, naturally
wanted military control maintained. But political-minded
leaders in the North knew that such a policy meant the
ignoring of the Southern States as States, which would
have been inconsistent with the avowed purposes of the
war, from the Federal standpoint, as Mr. Lincoln had
enunciated them. He had declared that secession was un-
lawful and that the object of the war was to maintain the
Union and hold the seceded States therein. The war, in
so far as the South was concerned, in his opinion, was a
“rebellion of individuals.”

The problem of reconstruction was a Federal responsi-
bility; but this responsibility was distasteful, and so inRECONSTRUCTION 35

accordance with Mr. Lincoln’s plans, which later were fol-
lowed by President Johnson, a program of “self-recon-
struction” was to be carried out. This followed the phi-
losophy of the illegality of secession; and it was reasoned.
that because the States were unaffected by their secession,
they should resume their normal functions in the Union
as soon as their loyal inhabitants were able, under Fed-
eral protection, to control their governments. But pro-
grams on paper look much easier than putting them into
practice proves to be; and from the year 1865 to 1880
was a stormy period in the history of the South. This
was due, perhaps, to the well-nigh impossibility of carry-
ing out the full programs of Lincoln and Johnson.
Lincoln, like Jefferson, was a great believer in the peo-
ple. “The people,” he said, “are the rightful masters of
both congresses and courts, not to overthrow the consti-

tution.” In these words is a glimpse of what would have
been Lincoln’s attitude toward the South in Reconstruc-
tion days had he lived. No man can divine “what might
have been.” But when an assassin’s bullet ended Mr. Lin-
coln’s life, Southern men and women groaned with real
grief. In some sections of the South they were almost
panic-stricken, because, in spite of Lincoln’s attack on
slavery and in spite of his dogged prosecution of the war,
they instinctively felt that once the war was over he would
give them fair treatment. In some parts of the South
to-day, particularly in South Carolina, where Confederate
organizations keep alive their hatred for the “Yankees,”
Lincoln is still looked upon as an enemy. He 1s still36 THE CHANGING SOUTH

maligned; and the responsibility for all the South’s woes
is still laid upon him. But the intelligent people in the
South sincerely believe that he would have been their
friend, and that the days of Reconstruction would have
been freer of suffering, had he lived.

Lincoln and Johnson both were natives of the South,
one born in Kentucky and the other in North Carolina;
but Lincoln’s public career was identified with the Mid-
dle West, while Johnson’s was identified with his native
Iand. When he succeeded Lincoln to the Presidency,
therefore, in the very nature of things, he couldn’t de-
mand the respect and confidence in the South that Lincoln
would have demanded. By many Southerners he was
looked upon as a “scalawag,” a term applied to fellow
Southerners who joined the Republican party or who
aided or sympathized with the North during the war.
Nevertheless, Johnson strove sincerely and earnestly to
carry out Lincoln’s policy as he believed Lincoln would
have desired, and he favored the South in many ways.
This, of course, drew the enmity of the Northern lead-
ers, and he was made to pay for his course with a great
deal of mental anguish which his impeachment trial
created.

Holding to the “self-reconstruction” program, John-
son, in the summer of 1865, set up provisional govern-
ments in all the seceded States except T’exas, and within
a few months all those States were reorganized and apply-
ing for readmission to the Union. Meanwhile the Fed-
eral Congress was Republican by a large majority, and
the radical members vigorously opposed Johnson. TheirRECONSTRUCTION 37

opposition was due to the fear that, once readmitted, the
Democratic membership in Congress would be strength-
ened; to the belief that the Southerners had not been
sufficiently punished for their rebellion, and to the fact
that the South was bent upon not giving political rights
to the Negroes. Serious trouble followed, and the Negro
issue was the cause of it.

Johnson was opposed to a general suffrage, and he was
particularly opposed to immediate suffrage; so a bitter
contest between the President and Congress began in
February, 1866, and continued until after his impeach-
ment trial. Congress refused to admit representatives
from the South, and during 1866 passed over, Johnson’s
veto such measures as the Freedman’s Bureau Act, the
Civil Rights Act, and submitted to the States the Four-
teenth Amendment to the Constitution. The following
year Congress, bent upon oppressing the South as much
as a body of lawmakers could, jettisoned Johnson’s whole
reconstruction program, and adopted one of its own. The
chief features of this were the disfranchisement of ex-
Confederates and the enfranchisement of the Negroes;
and now had come the time when the South, with eco-
nomic woes sufficient to crush her, was to be further torn
and made to suffer humiliation and reverses.

One thing which had driven Congress to such drastic
action was the South’s attitude toward the freed slaves.
In their attempts, in 1865 and 1866, under the Lincoln-
Johnson reconstruction program, to legislate for the
freedmen, the Southern States recognized emancipation
for the blacks, but it never occurred to them to recognize38 THE CHANGING SOUTH

the former slaves as citizens, with the rights of citizens.
In nearly all the Southern States the Negroes under the
Lincoln-Johnson program were given a subordinate civil
status, they were subjected to restrictions in business and
in contracts, and a system of penalties for vagrancy and
minor offenses was provided, which practically established
compulsory labor as the normal condition of the Negro.
Such an attitude inflamed the radicals and abolitionists
in Congress; and, already burdened with the feeling that
the South had been let off too easily, the Federal lawmak-
ers passed the measures above mentioned.

The purposes of the Freedmen’s Bureau has been ex-
plained. The Civil Rights Act provided for the protec-
tion of “all persons in the United States in their civil
rights,” and for “furnishing the means of their vindica-
tion.” The text was ominous. It was like waving a red
flag in the face of the Southerners. In 1 875 this Act was
amended to prevent discriminations against Negroes in
hotels, theaters, railway carriages and other utilities; but
in several cases of discrimination brought by Negroes be-
fore the Supreme Court that tribunal, in 1883, ruled the
clauses securing equal rights unconstitutional, since Con-
gress, in spite of the Fourteenth Amendment, had not
the right to regulate the private relations of citizens
within the States.. Upon the strength of this decision the
South, for all practical purposes, during the past forty-
four years, has defeated the chief aims and desires of the
famous Reconstruction Congress. It has denied the
Negro the full rights of citizenship and it has denied him
his right of suffrage, as will be described more fully later.RECONSTRUCTION 39

In the Reconstruction Congress of 1867, there were
two men who had more to do with producing the con-
fusion and bloodshed that was to follow in the two dec-
ades after the Civil War, than any others. These were
Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, in the Senate, and
Thaddeus Stevens, a native of Vermont, but representing
Pennsylvania in the House. Sumner had a stormy, color-
ful career in Congress. It was his speech in the Senate
in August, 1852, on “Freedom National; Slavery Sec-
tional,” that first solidified the abolitionists in Congress
against the South. The conventions of the Democratic
party and the Whigs, a few months before, had ap-
proved the provisions of the series of measures known as
the “Compromise of 1850.” These bills, which were
strongly sanctioned by Webster and Clay, were five in
number. The first provided for the admission of Cali-
fornia as a free State. The second provided for the or-
ganization of New Mexico and Utah as States, without
slavery being mentioned. The third fixed the northern
boundary of Texas, as it 1s now established, and provided
that the sum of $10,000,000 be paid to the State for re-
linquishing its claims to New Mexico. The fourth was
the famous fugitive slave act, which provided that a mas-
ter or his agent could take a supposed fugitive from the
State in which he was residing without a jury trial in that
State, and imposed fines on those who interfered with the
capture or rendition of fugitive slaves. It compelled all
citizens who were summoned to aid in the capture of fugi-
tives to give their assistance, and provided that the fee re-
ceived by United States marshals for Negroes who were40 THE CHANGING SOUTH

declared to be fugitives should be from $5 to $10: Bie
fifth bill abolished the slave trade in the District of
Columbia.

Sumner in a three-hour address demanded that the
fugitive slave act be repealed, and denounced it as a
violation of the Constitution, an affront to the public con-
science, and an offense against the divine law. His words
created a storm of anger among the Southern Congress-
men, and produced a sensation in the North and South.
Whether or not Sumner was influenced by Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s famous volume, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is
not known, but it is reasonable to believe he was. The
book had made its first appearance on March 20; 185.
and immediately created a sensation. It had unexampled
popularity in the North, was read by some Southerners,
and was translated into at least twenty-three different lan-
guages. It was the culmination of the abolitionist move-
ment which had begun in 1830, and was directed chiefly
against the fugitive slave law, which was being openly
and flagrantly violated in the North.

Perhaps Sumner saw the great influence which the book
had wrought on the minds of the people in the North, and
was encouraged thereby. In May, 1 856, he made another
address which was as sensational as the first. This time
he denounced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, which had been
passed in 1854 and which provided that the two terri-
tories of Kansas and Nebraska be organized without any
reference to whether they should be slave or free, and
that the people residing in the territories should deter-
mine whether or not they wanted slavery. The result ofRECONSTRUCTION 41

the act was the rapid settlement of the territory by aboli-
tionists and by Missourians who favored slavery. The
two factions entered into a struggle, and in 1856 what
amounted to civil war broke out in which much property
was destroyed and many lives were lost.

Sumner vigorously denounced what he termed the
“Crime Against Kansas,” and held up to scorn Stephen A.
Douglas, Lincoln’s old oratorical foe, and Andrew P. But-
ler, the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, “as the Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza of the harlot, slavery.” Two
days later, Preston P. Brooks, a congressman from South
Carolina and a relative of Butler, in anger confronted
Sumner as he sat at his desk in the Senate Chamber, de-
nounced the speech as libelous and as an insult to his rela-
tive, and then proceeded to pinion Sumner to his desk and
give him one of the worst beatings that has ever been
administered by one statesman to another in the annals
of the American Congress. Brooks’s blows upon Sumner’s
head were so frequent and vigorous that finally he sank
bleeding and unconscious to the floor. The attack almost
cost Sumner his life; but after three years he returned
to his post, and in 1859, with his same old fire, and in the
face of the election campaign of 1860, he delivered an
address on “The Barbarism of Slavery.”

Sumner probably was the first outstanding Congres-
sjonal reconstructionist in the North. He had no doubt
as to the outcome of the war, and the conflict had hardly
begun before he was advancing his theories of reconstruc-
tion. He held that the Southern States by their own

act had “committed State suicide,” and that their status42 THE CHANGING SOUTH

and the conditions of their readmission to the Union
would be matters for Congress to decide. So it was not
surprising that when the war had ended he vigorously
opposed the reconstruction policies of Lincoln and John-
son which were based on the assumption that reconstruc-
tion measures lay within the powers of the executive.
Throughout the war Sumner had been the champion
of the Negro, and always was a vigorous advocate of
emancipation. As one reviews the period of the war from
this distance, it is not difficult to see that he and Stevens
more than any other men influenced Lincoln to issue his
emancipation proclamation. And it is to Sumner and
Stevens that the South must forever give thanks, or hold
in perpetual calumny, as the case may be, for the estab-
lishment of equal suffrage rights for Negroes. Sumner
has been described as a scholar in politics, a phrase that is
lightly used nowadays in speaking of public men; but
heedless of the world’s many historical lessons, heedless
of the proved fact that the Negro race was slower than
any other in forming capacity for self-government, he
insisted upon giving the ballot to the most ignorant of
blacks, in the mistaken belief that their rights would be
taken from them by their former masters and that the
Northern aims of the conflict would be lost. It must be
admitted that he also advocated free homesteads and free
schools for the Negro which he hoped in time would fit
them for suffrage, as it certainly has done, in some cases,
but, by and large, the South since the close of the war has
Geeta the best dreams of Sumner.
It would be hard to say which exerted the more pow-RECONSTRUCTION 43

erful influence against the South in the Reconstruction
Congress, Sumner or Thaddeus Stevens. Both were abo-
Iitionists. Both were violently Northern in their senti-
ments, and the leading enemies of the Lincoln-Johnson
program. Stevens, a native of Vermont, remained in New
England until he was a matured man. After his gradua-
tion from Dartmouth College in 1814 he removed to
York, Pennsylvania, to practice law, and it was with that
State that his political career was identified. As fate
would have it, he spent his first fifteen years at Gettys-
burg, which was to be the scene of one of the bloodiest bat-
tles of the war. He frequently appeared in Pennsylvania
courts in behalf of fugitive slaves, and in the State con-
stitutional convention of 1837 refused to sign the Penn-
sylvania constitution limiting the right of suffrage to white
men. His first appearance on the National political stage
was in 1849 when he represented his State in Congress.
For the next four years he was a leader of the radical
wing of the Whigs and Free Soilers, and strongly opposed
the Compromise measures of 1850, and was even more
bitter in his denunciation of the fugitive slave law than
Sumner. In 1855 he took a prominent part in the or-
ganization of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, and
in 1856 was a delegate to the first Republican National
convention, in which he vainly opposed the nomination of
John C. Frémont, who was defeated in the election by
the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan.
Stevens returned to the Lower House of Congress in
1859, and naturally opposed Buchanan. He bitterly criti-
cized what he considered the vacillation of the BuchananA THE CHANGING SOUTH

administration; and his leadership and influence had
grown to such an extent by the time Lincoln came into
office that on July 4, 1861, he was made chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee. James G. Blaine said of
him that, “he was the natural leader who assumed his
place by common consent.” But throughout his leader-
ship, he always opposed executive authority, and, like
Sumner, was a staunch believer in the rule of Congress
in public affairs. More than three-score years does not
seem to have changed this philosophy in the halls of Con-
gress, where to-day the Senate, particularly, appears to be-
lieve that it is the supreme power in the affairs of gov-
ernment.

Stevens from the outset was opposed to Lincoln. Dur-
ing the war he was one with Sumner in advocating the
emancipation of the slaves, and ardently advocated the
raising of Negro troops, which was done. He never be-
lieved in being lenient with the Southerners in any de-
gree, as was Lincoln, who was more broad-minded and
more magnanimous. It was on the motion of Stevens that
the two Houses in joint session in December, 1865, ap-
pointed a joint commission on reconstruction; and in a
speech following the creation of the commission, he de-
clared that the rebellion ipso facto had blotted out of
being all States in the South; that the section was a “con-
quered province”; and that its government was in the
hands of Congress, which could reconstruct it in accord-
ance with the wishes and beliefs of its members. He was
made chairman of the joint reconstruction commission,
and as such, introduced what became the basis of the Re-RECONSTRUCTION 45

construction act of 1867 and the Fourteenth Amend-
ment. He advocated the Freedmen’s Bureau; and he
became so violently bent upon punishing the South that
he favored the confiscation of the property of the Con-
federate States and “of the real estate of 70,000 rebels
who own above 200 acres each, together with the lands of
their several States,” for the benefit of the freedmen and
the “loyal whites,” and to reimburse those who suffered
from Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania. There was a grim
humor about all this because when the soldiers in gray
attacked Chambersburg, Pa., they destroyed the ironworks
there which, as fate would have it, were owned by Stevens.

No man in Congress was more vindictive or more re-
vengeful toward the South. His measures and his works
and his speeches, together with those of Sumner, only
served to intensify racial hatreds, increased the difficul-
ties of solving the race problem, and finally forced the
white people of the South into the Democratic party,
where they have remained consistently to this day. Per-
haps many in the South have forgotten Sumner and
Stevens; perhaps there are many there who in the pres-
ent generation probably have never heard of them; but
there are conditions in the South to-day, there are preju-
dices, and, it must be said, many injustices in the South
to-day, which must be laid, in the final analysis, at the
doors of these men.

Stevens was such an extreme partisan in politics that
he was not even content to let death remove the bitter-
ness that the slavery issue and the Negro problem had
brought upon the country. He died in Washington in46 THE CHANGING SOUTH

1868, in the very midst of the most perilous times of re-
construction, and was buried in a small graveyard at Lan-
caster, Pa. On his tombstone is the following epitaph,
written by himself:

“I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from
any natural preference for solitude, but, finding other
cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have
chosen this, that I might illustrate in my death the princi-
ples I have advocated through a long life—Equality of
Man Before His Creator.”CHAPTER IV

KU KLUX

Nearly three months before Lee surrendered at Appo-
mattox, the Federal House of Representatives, confident
that the North would be victorious, concurred in the vote
of the Senate in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution, abolishing slavery throughout the Union.
It was the irony of fate that four years earlier Congress
had submitted to the States another Thirteenth Amend-
ment which prohibited it from interfering with slavery in
the States. The war prevented its ratification; and now
the abolitionist leaders were bent upon legalizing and re-
enforcing Mr. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. By
the 18th of December, 1865, the amendment had been
ratified and was proclaimed in force. In April, 1866, the
Civil Rights Bill was passed over President Johnson’s veto.
It declared the freed slaves to be citizens of the United
States, with the same civil rights as white persons, and
provided for punishment of any one who should discrimi-
nate or attempt to discriminate against the Negro. And
to reénforce this act, Congress, in June, 1866, provided for
submitting to the States the Fourteenth Amendment,
which gave the constitutional guarantee of citizenship and
equal civil rights to freed slaves. It also provided that
when in any State the right to vote should be denied to

any male inhabitants twenty-one years of age and citi-
4748 THE CHANGING SOUTH

 

zens of the United States, except for participation in a
rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in
the State should be reduced in the proportion which the
number of such citizens bore to the whole number of male
citizens twenty-one years of age in the State. This obvi-
ously left the Southern States the option of granting suf-
frage to the Negro or suffering a proportionate reduc-
tion in the number of representatives in Congress.

On top of these oppressive and humiliating Congres-
sional maneuvers came the Reconstruction Act of March
2, 1867, which provided for the military government of
the Southern States. It divided the South into five milj-
tary districts, each to be placed under a Federal military
commander, whose duty it was to preserve law and order
using, at his discretion, either local civil] tribunals or mili-
tary commissions. On the 23rd of March, Congress
passed a supplementary reconstruction act which provided
that in the registration of voters the district commanders
were required to administer an oath which excluded from
the right to vote those who had been disfranchised for
taking part in the rebellion, and those who, after holding
State or Federal office, had given aid and comfort to the
enemies of the United States. The Supreme Court of the
United States was appealed to, but the radicals in Con-
gress threatened to take away the appellate jurisdiction of
the court, and if necessary abolish the Court by constitu-
tional amendment. Mississippi attempted to secure an
injunction to prevent the carrying out of the Recon-
struction acts, and Georgia asked the Court to enjoin the
military authorities; but the Court refused to consider theKU KLUX 49

appeals on the ground that it had no jurisdiction. This is
not surprising when it is remembered that Chief Justice
Salmon P. Chase, who presided over the Court at the time
and wrote the refusal, all his life had been an uncompro-
mising and vigorous opponent of slavery. As a member
of Congress he had opposed the Compromise Measures of
1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He had been an
ardent member of the Free Soil party, which favored the
abolition of slavery in the territory and in the District of
Columbia. Indeed, it was he who drafted the Free Soil
platform in 1848, and it was through his influence that
Van Buren was nominated for the Presidency in that year.
He was the Secretary of the Treasury in Mr. Lincoln’s
cabinet from 1861 to 1864, and came under the influence
of men like Seward and Sumner. So when he was ap-
pointed to the Supreme bench in 1864, it was but natural
that he should plead the want of jurisdiction in the Missis-
sippi and Georgia cases, a position which now seems to be
indefensible. His decision in the case of Texas vs. White
in 1869, in which the famous phrase, “an indestructible
Union composed of indestructible States” was used, was
nothing more than an approval of the policies of the
Reconstruction Congress.

The South, then, could find no comfort in the legisla-
tive or judicial branches of government, and inasmuch
as Johnson, the only friend she had left, was checked
every time he showed her any leniency, little help or com-
fort could be expected from the executive. In 1868
Johnson’s impeachment trial was staged, resulting in his
vindication by one vote. And the following year he re-ee ow eye

 

50 THE CHANGING SOUTH

tired into private life in the hill regions of Tennessee
Where the population for the most part was composed of
small planters and “poor white trash,” and from which
Johnson through sheer ability and personal endeavor, had
risen to the highest office in the land. But before Johnson
relinquished the Presidency he firmly and courageously
made plain his opinion of the Reconstruction Congress’s
policies. He believed that it established martial law in
time of peace; that it suspended the writ of habeas cor-
pus; that it actually destroyed all evidence of a Republi-
can form of government in the South; and that the whole
thing was unconstitutional and tyrannical. The South
agreed with him wholeheartedly, and in the decade that
followed his retirement, they translated his beliefs into
acts which brought into being the Solid South of to-day.
The North was now in full swing with its military re-
construction and with what it believed was even more jm-
portant, the organization of the Negro vote. The “car-
pet-baggers” from the North made their appearance.
Many of these men were adventurers who went South
in the belief that it offered an opportunity to become rich
at the expense of Southern impoverishment. They rep-
resented the worst type of white man on the continent.
They were shrewder and far more unscrupulous than the
“poor white trash” in the South. They became the po-
litical managers of the freed Negroes, and were aided
and abetted in their purposes by the “scalawags,” a term
of opprobrium the Southerners gave to the native whites
who aided the Northerners in the reconstruction work.
Secret Societies such as the Union League were formed.KU) KUN 51

The Union League was organized in Ohio in 1862, and
was composed of Unionists in eighteen Northern States
and throughout many of the Southern commonwealths.
In the South it taught the Negroes equality of men and
the right to own their former masters’ property. It pro-
hibited the so-called “moral control” of the Negroes by
former masters. Its radical leaders controlled the votes
of the blacks during reconstruction; and Negroes who
voted against its wishes frequently were whipped and
persecuted, and sometimes put to death. The League
went out of existence in 1870 after it had engendered
widespread hatred between the whites and blacks in the
South, and had forced the Southerners to be harsher to-
ward the Negroes than they would have been otherwise.
It was through the work of the “carpet-baggers,” the
“scalawags” and the members of the Union League and
minor organizations that the Solid South gradually began
to crystallize. From 1868 to 1870, the Negroes were in
the majority in South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mis-
sissippi and Louisiana. In Georgia the races were about
evenly balanced while in Virginia, North Carolina,
Arkansas and Texas they were in the minority. In 1868
the Northerners, having placed the Negroes in power, had
carried everything before them; and conditions were be-
coming so intolerable that the Southern whites began to
make plans to combat the Reconstructionists in the most
effective way they could devise.

At first the white leaders in the South were divided on
the best means of putting a check to what now was de-
veloping into Negro supremacy. Negro officials werea eye

ee

52 THE CHANGING SOUTH

 

being elected and Negro legislators were being sent to
State capitals under the encouragement and guidance of
the tyrannical rule of the “carpet-bagger,” the native
renegades and the Negro politicians. It was suggested in
some quarters that those white Southerners who were
entitled to vote should register and then stay away from
the polls, in order to defeat the constitutions made under
Negro suffrage, for the constitutions could only be ratified
by a majority of the registered voters. But this pro-
cedure was too mild an affair for the hot-blooded men
of the South who day after day were chafing under
Northern despotism. There was but one thing left for
them to do—and they did that with a vengeance which has
left a stain on the history of the Solid South and an abid-
ing reminder of the stupidity of the whole Federal Con-
gressional Reconstruction policy.

Between 1865 and 1876 there came into being in dif-
ferent parts of the South secret organizations of young
white men, whose purpose it was to destroy the control
of the “carpet-baggers,” the “scalawags” and Negro poli-
ticians. These included the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights
of the White Camelia, the White Brotherhood, the White
League, the Pale Faces, the Constitutional Union Guards,
the Black Cavalry, the White Rose, The 76 Association,
and a number of smaller and less important organizations.
Of this group the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the
White Camelia were the most important. In the begin-
ning the Ku Klux Klan was a rather mild affair. It was
organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866, as a social club
for young men; but it had a weird ritual and a strangeKU KLUX 53

and altogether horrifying uniform. It was by a mere
accident that a member discovered that the uniform put
the fear of God—and the fear of the devil—into the
heart of the Negro. That produced the germ of an idea,
and the idea became general in the South.

The White Camelia was organized in Louisiana in
1867 and later joined forces more or less with the Ku
Klux Klan. By the time these organizations had spread
throughout the South, “carpet-bag” and Negro rule was
at its worst. Ideas of social and political equality were
being broadcast; Negro insurrection in some places was
being fomented to bring the obdurate whites around;
Negro militia were being armed and equipped and driven
to attack the whites and disarm them; and to top all of
this there frequently were outrages upon white women
by black men. This last was the crowning weight of in-
tolerableness, so the Ku Klux Klan adopted a constitution
and began its cruel and bloody work.

The Prescript or constitution of the Klan, adopted in
1867, and revised in 1868, established the South as an
“Invisible Empire,’ under a Grand Wizard, General
Nathan B. Forrest, an illiterate, but able and gallant Con-
federate cavalry officer. Each State was a Realm under
a Grand Dragon; several counties formed a Dominion un-
der a Grand Titan; each county was a Province under a
Grand Giant; and the smallest division was a Den under
a Grand Cyclops. Leaders bore such titles as Genii, Hy-
dras, Furies, Goblins, Night Hawks, Magi, Monks and

Turks; and the private members were called Ghouls.
The Klan was not unlike the Carbonari, a secret society,54 THE CHANGING SOUTH

which played an active part in the history of France and
Italy early in the nineteenth century. The Italian or-
ganization was curious and mysterious and had a fan-
tastic ritual full of symbols taken from the Christian
religion. The Klan also was similar in some respects to
the “Tugendbund,” or League of Virtue, which, follow-
ing Napoleon’s defeat of Prussia, endeavored to build up
a strong spirit of patriotism to offset the lack of morale
which a French victory had produced. In some respects
it was like the Confréres of France, notably the one
founded in Paris in the fourteenth century to assist pil-
grims in their journeys to the Holy Land; and it was
not unlike the Freemasons, as they operated in Catholic
countries, and the Vehmgericht, or Fehmic Courts, which
during the Middle Ages exercised a powerful and some-
times sinister jurisdiction in Germany and more especially
in Westphalia. Such organizations inevitably are the out-
growths of oppression and tyranny; and even in the early
days of Christianity were resorted to, in various forms,
to protect the Christians against persecutions.

The spirits of protection, indignation and retaliation
were strong among the members of the Ku Klux Klan,
and it required little urging on the part of their leaders
to begin a campaigre whick proved to be an era of law-
lessness, cruelty and‘bioddshed that lasted from 1865 to
1875. The Tennessee Klan, above mentioned, when it
had discovered that their regalia frightened the Negro,
immediately began to take advantage of the fact. Weird
and horrendous tales were told to the Negroes to frightenKU KLUX 55

them from roaming about and pilfering from their for-
mer masters. Members carried a flesh bag in the shape of
a heart, and went about “hollering for fried nigger meat.”
Upon one occasion a Klan member represented himself as
having been killed six years before at the battle of Manas-
sas, “and since then some one has built a turnpike over
his grave and he has to scratch like hell to get up through
the gravel.” Another member carried an India-rubber
stomach, to startle a Negro by swallowing pailfuls of
water. These harmless beginnings gradually grew into
cruelties and killings.

At the height of its power, General Forrest, the Grand
Wizard, estimated the Klan organization in Tennessee
alone at 40,000, and a similar number had organized in
other States. The members were sworn to secrecy, under
the penalty of death for a violation of their oaths. Well
armed and mounted on horses, many of which had had ex-
perience in the Confederate cavalries, they began to patrol
the South at night, their long white gowns providing a
spectacle that the strongest Negro heart could not with-
stand. The timid and superstitious blacks were terrified
when they saw them and sincerely believed they were
ghosts. The Klansmen found keen enjoyment in all
this. Then the more daring among them began surround-
ing and breaking into the Negro cabins and frightened
and maltreated the inmates. Sometimes they were
warned of a future vengeance; again they were severely
whipped. Then the Klansmen, fevered by the success of
their operations, suddenly were seized with bloodthirst-~~ ene

56 THE CHANGING SOUTH

iness, although to their credit it must be said that this
was aggravated by the attacks on white women by blacks,
which were becoming more and more numerous.

The time came when the Klansmen did not hesitate to
carry off an undesirable Negro politician or “carpet-
bagger,” hang him to a tree and riddle his body with
bullets. This was the beginning of the long record of
lynchings in the South. Finally the Klan systematized
its bloody work. It puta ban on promiscuous cruelties and
killings; but went about them in an orderly manner.
Meetings were held in secret places, usually in the woods,
for the purpose of frightening the Negroes. The man-
ner of making raids and punishing Negroes and “carpet-
baggers” was prescribed by regulations. All raids, punish-
ments and killings first must be agreed upon and mapped
out in meetings. Secret signals and watchwords were
adopted. And when punishment was to be inflicted on
a victim, the raiders came from a distant locality, to avoid
recognition, The same kind of thing is practiced by
lynchers in the South to-day.

The operations of the Klan finally began to embrace
whippings, killings and the most agonizing mutilations,
comparable to those practiced in the Middle Ages by re-
ligious fanatics. Although these acts were frequent
throughout the South, North Carolina became the scene
of the worst cruelty and bloodshed. A notable case in
that State was the fate of a white man named Outlaw, a
member of the Union League, who was condemned by
the Klan, sentenced and executed. He was taken from
his home in Alamance county about midnight in February,KU KLUX 57

1870, by a band of from eighty to one hundred men and
hanged to the limb of an elm tree near the court-house
door. In the same county a simpleton who was supposed
to have seen some of his neighbors who had taken part in
the killing of Outlaw, was drowned in a pond for fear
that he might talk. Two Negroes in the county were
shot, and fifty were whipped. In Caswell county, a mem-
ber of the State Senate, named J. W. Stevens, was killed,
and a white man and a Negro were whipped. In Catawba
county, twenty-two men were whipped and one was shot.
In nearly all the other counties there were similar records
of whippings and killings. The story is told that a rev-
enue agent, while traveling in Orange county, in which
six men had been hanged and as many more whipped,
came upon the bodies of two Negroes hanging from a tree
limb. Some Negro women and children were standing
near by weeping. They begged him to read a paper which
had been attached to one of the bodies. He did so; and
the paper bore the inscription, “Barn-burners and women-
‘nsulters.” The tragedy of the deaths of these Negroes,
as learned later, was the fact that they had been threatened.
and intimidated into setting fire to a half dozen barns in
the county, by their “carpet-bagger” leaders.

Such acts were particularly prevalent in North Caro-
lina, but they also were typical of what the Klan was doing
throughout the South. The State of Virginia probably
was freer of such lawlessness than any other. In a re-
port made to the United States Senate in 1871, it was
declared that in ninety-nine counties in different South-

ern States there were 526 killings and more than 2,00058 THE CHANGING SOUTH

whippings attributed to the Klan, that in Louisiana alone
in 1868 the Klan was guilty of 1,000 homicides. With
the exception of Virginia, similar figures were given for
other States from time to time.

By the summer of 1868 all the former Confederate
States, except Virginia, Mississippi and Texas, had, under
the compulsion of the Congressional-military reconstruc-
tion program, ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, and by
1870 the remaining three States had ratified it. Having
satisfied the requirements of the Reconstruction acts,
Arkansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Ala-
bama, Louisiana and Florida, were in the summer of
1868 entitled to representation in Congress. Tennessee
had been readmitted to the Union in 1866; and when
Virginia, Mississippi and Texas were restored in 1870,
reconstruction technically was completed, but Congress
was not done with it yet.

In 1868 Ulysses S. Grant was elected, following a
campaign in which reconstruction was the issue. Horatio
Seymour, the Democratic candidate, favored the Lincoln-
Johnson plan of reconstruction, while Grant favored the
Congressional program. On March 30, 1870, the Fif-
teenth Amendment was adopted and proclaimed estab-
lishing universal manhood suffrage, but particularly de-
signed to give the Negro the right to vote. As was to be
expected the Southern States in the Congressional election
of 1870 went Democratic; and this gave the Republican
members of Congress such concern that they forthwith
enacted enforcement legislation providing penalties for
violations of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments,KU KLUX 59

and reénacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866. In 1871 and
1872 measures were passed providing for the Federal
supervision of Congressional elections; and Ku Klux acts
were enacted for the purpose of still further increasing
the power of the Federal Courts to enforce the Four-
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments. They authorized the
President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and use
military force, if necessary, to prevent the intimidation
of Negro voters by the whites. By this time, however,
the Ku Klux Klan had accomplished its main purposes.
But the Southerners were beginning to believe that the
North intended to apply martial law over them and op-
press them until the end of time; then a fortunate thing
happened. The more intelligent Northern people began
to see the folly of such persistent oppression on the part
of the Northern radicals in Congress, and public opinion
‘n the North demanded more leniency. The result was
the repeal of the ron-clad oath” for former Confed-
erates in 1871, and the passage of the General Amnesty
Act of 1872, which restored the white Southerners to their
former civil rights.

In 1872, it was estimated, the public debts of the eleven
reconstructed States had reached $132,000,000. Legis-
lative expenses had been shamefully extravagant, for
which Negro members of the legislature were largely re-
sponsible. Most of them were reckless, and many of
them were corrupt in the matter of expenditures. During
this year the control of the electoral machinery was still
in the hands of the Republicans who were using the

Negroes as pawns; and nearly all the State governments<a Se OS ee

 

    

60 THE CHANGING SOUTH

were being made bankrupt through bad management and
corruption.

In spite of such conditions, the South began, in 1 872, to
look up economically. The use of fertilizers and the
employment of more intelligent white labor produced
good cotton crops. Mines and manufactures began to
develop, and new communities began coming into being
as a result of renewed economic activity. In the cotton
areas Negroes became the tenants of the plantation owners
and worked the crops on shares. Negro labor was being
employed at fair wages; but the problem of Negro labor
was a difficult one. Politics continued to aggravate racial
friction. It was beginning to dawn on the intelligent
citizens in the North and South that America—particu-
larly the South—was confronted with a new political and
social question, the Negro problem. And the North, in
time, characteristically left the South to solve it as best
she could.

In 1877, President Hayes removed the last remaining
Federal troops from Southern territory. The withdrawal
permitted the South to solve her local problems without
further National interference. It was the signal for the
delivery of the Solid South from a long and terrible
travail. It was the beginning of a new era of reconstruc-
tion which brought into being a New South that js hardly
different politically and sentimentally from the Old

South, but which to-day challenges any other section of
America economically.CHAPTER: V

THE NEGRO

When the last Federal troops had been removed from
the South, the former Confederate States were now left
free to work out their own destiny; but their problems
were so many and so difficult that to the strongest opti-
mists it appeared to be a hopeless task. State governments
and cities, communities and individuals were bankrupt.
The South was without the means to buy machinery for
manufactures or implements for agriculture. Its man-
power had been reduced and weakened by the war; and
to top all its burdens it had 4,000,000 freed Negroes with
whom by the force of circumstances it must live and rec-
ognize as citizens on a par with the best type of white citi-
zen in the South.

Contrary to what has been said and written about the
treatment of the slaves by their masters, cruelties in ante-
bellum days were rare. The State of Georgia probably
was the most notorious of the Southern States in her treat-
ment of the blacks before the Civil War. She had more
slaves than any other State, and there were many reports
of mistreatment and cruelty within her borders; but
generally throughout the South the slaves were treated
with the utmost kindness by plantation owners. On many
of the plantations they were taught to read and write,

and were reared in Christian atmospheres. When they
61ites

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62 THE CHANGING SOUTH

were ill they were cared for with as much concern by the
white mistress of the plantation as if they were her own
children. The pictures Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and
other abolitionists painted of Negro cruelties were exag-
gerations and more often than not had little if any basis of
truth.

The relationship between the slaves and their masters
was such that the Negroes became devoted to their white
owners, and the latter formed a real affection for the
blacks. A pathetic story is told of how when Hunter’s
Federal troops penetrated the Shenandoah valley of Vir-
ginia and herded away Negro women and children on
forced marches they fell by the wayside and begged to
be allowed to return to the “Marster” and ““Missus” ;
and many of them did steal away and returned to their
old plantation homes where they remained with their
former owners and shared their poverty and hardships
until the end of their lives. White owners of slaves, men
and women alike, wept when their slaves in whom they
trusted left them. A story is told of how a Southern
major a decade or two after the war chanced to run across
a former slave in the city of Washington. The man was
old and bent and white-haired. When the Major spied
him, he shook a cane at him and exclaimed, “Come here,
you damned scoundrel! Where have you been all
these years?” The aged Negro fell on his knees, bowed
his head Moslem fashion and cried, “‘Lawd, marster, you
is de fust gentman I’se seen since I lef? home.” When he
arose the two men shook hands and embraced. The
Major learned that the old Negro had been extendedTHE NEGRO 63

what amounted to social equality by some of the Wash-
ington white people but that that was all they had ex-
tended him, so he returned to the South with his former
master.

There were times in the South when the bluest-blooded
white babies were fed at the breasts of Negro women.
This was done when the child’s mother could not feed
it; and those were days when pasteurized milk was un-
known. Small white boys grew up to manhood in close
companionship with Negro lads, and the affection between
them was genuine and abiding. The Negro boys never
overstepped their bounds; nor would the white lads, par-
ticularly when they were nearing their maturity, permit
them to do so.

It is doubtful that one Negro in a thousand in the
South knew what the Civil War was being fought about
until Lincoln issued his proclamation in 1863. When it
was issued, it was the beginning of what was to become
America’s so-called Negro problem—a problem which
the nation still faces and which it has not yet adequately
solved.

The emancipation of the slaves had no sooner been
broadcast throughout the South than the attitude of the
whites toward the blacks changed to a revolutionary de-
gree. Negroes now were looked upon as enemies, because
they were being used by the Northerners as soldiers and
because their freedom was a weapon in Lincoln’s hands
with which to win the war. Indignation was the first
reaction of the whites; then followed a genuine dislike;
and dislike grew into hatred; so that by the time the Kuf
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64. THE CHANGING SOUTH

Klux Klan had made its appearance Negroes collectively
were looked upon by the white Southerners with as much
aversion as were the “damned Yankees.”

If these pages have appeared to smack of an apology
for the white people of the South in their attitude toward
the North and particularly toward the Negroes, such a
thing has not been intended. In any event, one cannot
write of the South and her history without writing as
truly and as honestly as one is capable of doing of the
tragic history of the Negro—a history which is as tragic
in its shaping to-day, in many ways, as it was before and
immediately after the Civil War.

Lincoln’s famous proclamation thrust upon the South
a freed population of 4,000,000 Negroes. Their pres-
ence in this country, in the first place, had been against
their will, and marks an imperishable stain upon the white
races who brought them over and upon the white races
who held them in bondage. Beginning with the appear-
ance of a Dutch slaveship off Virginia’s shores in 1619,
the slave trade was carried on along the American coast
from New England, until the year 1700. After that time
slave trading was confined to the Southern States; and
after 1808, in which year the slave trade legally was abol-
ished, thousands of blacks were smuggled into the South.
In the far South and along the South Atlantic coast they
were badly needed to work the cotton, tobacco and rice
crops.

How the slave finally became the occasion of the Civil
War has been described. We have now passed through
the Civil War period and part of the ReconstructionTHE NEGRO 65

period to the year 1877. What was the condition of the
Negro population in the year 1877? In South Carolina
and Mississippi there were more Negroes than white
people. Was the Negro of 1877 the same kind of Negro
who was brought to America in the seventeenth century?
Was he the same kind of Negro who was brought to
America early in the nineteenth century?

The answer to these questions forms one of the great-
est tragedies in our brief but eventful history. The an-
swer to these questions forms the blackest mark against
the white men of the South that could be placed against
any race of any color in the world. That answer is the
mulatto. In the year 1877, it 1s estimated, from one-
£fth to one-third of the so-called Negroes in the South
had white blood in their veins; and to-day it is estimated
that one-third of the Negroes in the United States have
white blood in them. After 1877 the mixture had become
so prevalent and so obvious that the States began passing
laws defining the status of the Negro, and to-day a Negro
in nearly all the States, by statute, is “a person who has
one-eighth or more of African blood.”

Sophisticated persons and _historical-minded persons
might be inclined to consider lightly the mulatto as the
natural outgrowth of any condition in which two alien
races are thrown together. But the tragedy of the
mulattoes is not merely in the fact that the white blood in
them was the blood of inferior whites and middle-class
whites. The tragedy is that hundreds of them, thousands
of them, possess the finest white blood in the South—

aristocratic blood, if you will. “Why is this a tragedy,”tas

ee St ee es eee oe a
ee =

66 THE CHANGING SOUTH

you might ask, “when the mulattoes themselves are proud
of their white blood?” Perhaps that is true in many
cases, nevertheless their status is the same socially as that
of the very blackest Negro. To understand what this
means one must remember that not a few, but many, of
the mulattoes are blood kin to the F. F. V.s in Virginia,
to the first families in South Carolina, and to the blue
bloods in the other Southern States, but they cannot, of
course, be accepted as kinsmen. It is known, too, that cer-
tain prominent white bachelors in certain States in the
South reared large families of mulattoes by Negro mis-
tresses, and one notable case is that of a member of the
Court of Appeals in one of the leading States in the South.
The mulattoes are proud of their blood, as was an old
mulatto mammy who chided her jet black companion with
the remark, “Quit talkin’, child, Ise got white blood in
me.” Whereupon the ebony-colored person retorted,
“Dat mought be so, but my color, jes’ de same, is hono’-
blew?

No more pathetic confession is to be found in the biog-
raphies of the world, than that which was written by the
late Booker T. Washington, in his volume, “Up from
Slavery.” He frankly admitted that he never knew the
identity of his father, but had been told that he was a
white man. In Franklin county, Virginia, where Wash-
ington was born, there is the persistent notion that he was
the son of a man who became a famous seafighter; but this
has never been proved. One of the tragedies of the
mulatto, in so far as he himself is concerned, is his in-
ability to prove his lineage on his paternal side. This isTHE NEGRO 67

not displeasing to the whites; but what of the Negro who
has inherited the talents and noble aspirations of a white
ancestor? He is not permitted to follow in the footsteps
of that ancestor. He must in the South go the way of
the lowly laborer, more times than not, and work side by
side with an ignorant black. All the better class of
Negroes, including the more prominent leaders and men
of talent, have been and are mulattoes. I confess that 1
am not prepared to offer a solution of what has come to
be the so-called Negro problem. Iam merely presenting
truths about one phase of that problem which cannot be
denied. The abolitionists and the radical members of the
Reconstruction Congress tried to solve it, but what hap-
pened?

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, and the Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments all were designed to solve the
Negro problem. The Lincoln edict abolished slavery in
the South; the Thirteenth Amendment abolished it by
organic law throughout the Union; the Fourteenth made
him a citizen; and the Fifteenth made him a voter. Com-
menting on the revolutionary change in the status of the
Southern Negro during a period of ten years, four of
which years were spent in fighting the Civil War, Viscount
James Bryce, in his “American Commonwealth,” de-
clared, “Rights which the agricultural laborers of Eng-
land did not obtain until 1885, were thrust upon these
children of nature, whose highest form of pleasure had
hitherto been to caper to the strains of a banjo.”

That is putting it too mildly. If the Northern recon-Se Se OO ene

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

68 THE CHANGING SOUTH

structionists had had their way, Negro governors and
members of State legislatures would be ruling the South-
ern States to-day. But time proved that Lord Bryce had
no reason for commiserating the Southern whites. The
Southerners soon found means of making the Negroes’
“rights,” rights in name only; and while the practical
nullification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend-
ments to the Constitution in the South continues as the
natural outgrowth of the South’s determination to main-
tain white supremacy, nothing is more anomalous in the
history of governments than the Negro in the South to-
day. He not only has been deprived, by various devices,
of his right of suffrage; he not only has been deprived of
his right to hold a public office; but in some States, notably
in Georgia, he has been deprived of his right to make a
living in the way he has chosen. If the shade of Thad-
deus Stevens is capable of discerning the treatment of the
Negro in the South his body must be turning over in its
lonely grave at Lancaster.

It is only fair to say something about the Negro in the
North. Before doing so, it is interesting to review the
population figures, according to the census of 1920. Ac-
cording to the census report of that year there were ap-
proximately 16,000,000 white persons in the eleven
Southern States which seceded from the Union, and 8,-
000,000 of the 10,000,000 Negroes in the Union, live in
the South. This reveals that only about two per cent. of
the country’s Negro population to-day lives in the other
States in the Union. It is interesting to note that there are
7,000,000 white persons in the New England States andTUT eae

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
     

THE NEGRO 69

only 745,000 Negroes. There are not as many Negroes |
‘1 the whole of New England as there are in each of the | !
States of Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina. Now | i
let us look at the populous States in the East, the Middle |e
West and the West. Illinois has about 6,000,000 white \
persons and 182,000 Negroes; New York has 10,000,000
white persons and over 200,000 Negroes; Pennsylvania
has 8,000,000 white persons and 284,000 Negroes; Cali-
fornia has 3,000,000 white persons and 38,000 Negroes. ;
These are 1920 census figures. The District of Columbia
is the only area in what may be termed the North—
although it is below the Mason and Dixon line—in which
there is almost an equal number of whites and blacks.
These figures show that the Negro problem is essen-

tially the South’s problem. The figures, however, bring

up interesting questions involving the North’s attitude '
toward the Negro. In the South Jim Crow laws of vari- | :
ous kinds have been enacted on the railroads and street / |

cars. The schools throughout the South are separated. .
Negroes are not allowed in white hotels; and when they Pay
are permitted in theaters, they must go to sections espe-
cially blocked off for them. In the North, save in the ||
case of hotels, cafés and restaurants, the Negro is granted
all the rights the white man enjoys. But one is con-
strained to ask whether the white Northerners would find
pleasure in extending these civil rights to the Negroes if
the 8,000,000 Southern Negroes were in the North and
the 2,000,000, scattered throughout the Union, were in
the South. How would New York and Pennsylvania feel
about the matter if their Negro population was greateren Se Ae ee oS Se eee

RS ee

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70 THE CHANGING SOUTH

than the white, as it is in Mississippi and South Carolina?
I do not ask these questions to offend the Negroes nor to
raise a controversy over the so-called Negro problem; but
it is desirable to show in a most convincing manner that
the North and the South have Negro problems of widely
differing degrees.

There is no good reason for mincing words over the
subject. The Northern people recognize the inherent
racial differences between the white and black races just as
readily as the Southerners; and they display their real
feelings when they are put to the test as readily as the
Southerners. A review of recent history will prove this.
It is estimated that during the World War period,—that
is, the period of America’s participation in the conflict,—
approximately 500,000 Southern Negroes migrated to the
industrial centers of the North and Middle West. In
nearly every center in which they settled race clashes, and
sometimes serious race riots, broke out. In Washington,
D. C., six persons were killed and many were wounded.
In Chicago, 36 were killed. In Philadelphia many per-
sons were wounded in a race fight; and there were serious
race riots in New London, Conn., Bloomington, IIl., Syra-
cuse, N. Y., New York City, Coatesville, Penn., Scranton,
Penn., and Darby, Penn.’ The situation became so seri-

1The New York Times covering a period from 1917 to 1919, inclu-
sive, shows that there were as many as five riots in New York City. There
was one in the San Juan section of the city in July, 1917; another in
Harlem in April, 1918; one at Price Street, Brooklyn, in October, 1918;
and two in Harlem, March and July, 1919, respectively. In a riot in
Harlem in March, 1919, 3,000 whites and blacks participated. In some
of these riots several persons were killed and many injured. Page num-
bers and dates concerning these riots can be found in the New York Times
index, for the years mentioned.THE NEGRO 71

ous in the North that Senator Curtis of Kansas introduced
a resolution in the Senate calling for a Senatorial investi-
gation. In the city of Omaha, in 1919, a mob bent upon
lynching a young Negro who was alleged to have attacked
a white girl, seized Mayor Edward P. Smith, who was
appealing to them to let the law take its course, placed a
rope around his neck and dragged him through the street.
He died a few hours later.

Such outbursts are periodical. Meanwhile, it is note-
worthy that in spite of Supreme Court decisions against
the enforced segregation of Negroes in the cities, the
Negroes in the North as well as in the South, are living
in separate communities. Harlem, in New York City,
is a case in point; and there are similar communities in
Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington. It is true that
in these cities there are streets on which whites and blacks
live side by side; but the whites always are of the middle
or even an inferior class. The Negroes, particularly the
mulattoes, resent discrimination, and naturally resent any-
thing that has the appearance of denying them their civic
rights; but it is not in the South alone that the whites
show an antipathy for the Negro. This antipathy is a
fact that cannot be denied; and it is one of the first things
that must be recognized by both races if they ever hope to
solve the Negro problem.

The Southern white not only understands the Negro
better than the Northern white, but he is more honest in
his attitude toward him. When I say this I recognize that
technically it is wrong to deny the Negro the right of
suffrage or any other of his civic rights; but the South’sNe A OS Ey

—— -

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72 THE CHANGING SOUTH

honesty is based upon a fact—which many Northerners
are beginning to recognize—that the two races must live
together, apart. That is to say, there can never be any
widespread social intercourse between them. The racial
differences are too strong to permit it. Why God created
these differences is something for God to explain. The
white man cannot explain it; but the Southern white
recognizes it and tries to meet it in a sensible way. At
the same time he has an affection for the Negro; he is
quick to be his real friend in time of need; and he holds
for him a genuine sympathy in his struggle against odds
over which he himself has had no control or voice. The
churches are not altogether honest in their dealings with
the Negro; nor are the politicians. In the case of the
churches, particularly in the North, the attitude of the
white ministers toward a black brother of the cloth usually
is hardly more than toleration, and sometimes it is the
most obvious racial antipathy. This was illustrated in a
meeting of ministers in a Northern city recently in which
a white clergyman refused to sit by a Negro minister at a
conference.

In the circumstances, the white Southerners believe
they are honest in their treatment of the Negro in so far
as social intercourse is concerned. Whether their God
will forgive them for the crime of the mulatto is some-
thing I cannot pass upon; but I do know that the reason
and the only reason why they attempt to deny the Negro
his political and sometimes his civic rights, is because they
are afraid that his next desire will be social equality, some-THE NEGRO 73

thing which they rightfully consider to be impossible.

In the matter of charity, self-sacrifice and downright
nobility, the Southern white 1s not surpassed by his broth-
ers in the North. He no longer hates the Negro as such,
as he did during the days of reconstruction. His attitude
toward him is based upon a fundamental truth which the
people of this country must recognize if they desire to
avert serious trouble at some time in the future. It 1s a
tragic state of affairs, and certainly one for which no man
in his wildest dreams can blame the Negro. His pres-
ence, here, the result of the greed and inhumanity of
our ancestors, historically is a wrong that Constitutional
amendments, Supreme Court decisions and statutory enact-
ments cannot atone. His presence in America to-day is a
violation of all the finer principles of government and
all the noblest sentiments of religion. His presence here
‘s the result of what no man, of whatever color, should be
made to endure—slavery.

Who can read the plaintive poems of Paul Dunbar, of
another generation, or of Countee Cullen, of this genera-
tion, without realizing that in the Negro race in America
are souls that aspire to the stars? And who are there
among the whites who would deny them the beauty of
the stars? But emotions, dreams and talents—art itself—
cannot eradicate the distinguishing lines that Nature lays
down, even though, in doing so, she buries the heart
of a poet beneath the dust of caste, or stills with the
cries of inherent aversion the songs of the sweetest singer.

I must confess that I know of no race in the wide world

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

i ae RENT TELL

LT74. THE CHANGING SOUTH

to-day that deserves more pity and sympathy, and admira-
tion for its courage and nobility, than the Negro race in
America; and I believe when I say this that I voice the
sentiments of those white people who reside in the Solid
South,CHAPTER VI

WHITE SUPREMACY

In Grant’s first term, many of the Reconstruction poli-
cies which were a part of his platform were carried out.
The Fifteenth Amendment was formally adopted and
proclaimed on March 30, 1870. Grant, it should be re-
membered, was elected largely because of “carpet-bag”
rule. His opponent, Seymour, carried only the States of
Georgia and Louisiana, while Tennessee and five of the
former Confederate States upon which Negro suffrage had
been imposed under military reconstruction, had voted for
him under compulsion. These were North Carolina,
South Carolina, Florida, Alabama and Arkansas. Vir-
ginia, Mississippi and Texas had not yet been readmitted
to the Union.

The Fifteenth Amendment was forced upon the South,
and it was upon the condition that they ratify it that Vir-
ginia, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia were readmitted to
the Union in 1870. Not entirely satisfied that the Fif-
teenth Amendment would force the Southern States to
give the Negroes their votes, the Republicans in 1870
enacted measures designed to enforce obedience to the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. They were par-
ticularly provoked because in 1868 and 1869 Louisiana

and Tennessee had broken away from the Republican col-
75Se ee eee

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76 THE CHANGING SOUTH

umn; while in the Congressional election of 1870 Ten-
nessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama
had gone Democratic. So the Civil Rights Act of 1866
was reénacted, and this unquestionably had much to do
with breaking up, or at least with checking, the operations
of the Ku Klux Klan.

Nationally, the Southern States in 1872 were still under
the “carpet-bag” rule in so far as Negro votes were con-
cerned, and Grant again was elected, this time over Hor-
ace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, who had
protested against the continued use of Federal troops to
uphold the Government’s reconstruction measures in the
South, and who objected particularly to what he believed
to be the enormously increasing expenditure of the central
government and its hordes of Republican employees whom
he described as “patriots for revenue only? Because
Greeley had always been a Whig many Democrats in the
North refused to vote for him. In 1873 the North was
stricken with a financial panic. The reasons for it, briefly,
were the overbuilding of railroads, the overcapitalization
of many industries, the need of currency to remove crops,
heavy land mortgages in the West, unrest occasioned by
corruption exposed in Grant’s Administration, losses from
the Chicago and Boston fires of that year, general ex-
travagance in living in the North, and finally the failure
of Jay Cooke and Company. This panic dealt a severe
blow to the North, and the South which already was bur-
dened with economic reverses did not escape added suffer-
ing and distress, as a result. One bright thing that grew
out of the panic for the South, however, was that it wasWHITE SUPREMACY 77

the beginning of the shaping of public opinion in the
North against continued Federal control of the South,
particularly if that control was, as Horace Greeley had
pointed out, to call for enormous expenditures. The
whole country, including the South, suffered from the
panic until 1878, the year after Federal troops left the
former Confederate States.

In 1874 vigorous political efforts were made by some
of the Southern States to throw off Republican domina-
tion, which, in effect, still was Negro domination. Louisi-
ana, Mississippi and South Carolina were especially
active; and the situation at one time became so critical
that General Sheridan was forced to drive the conserva-
tive members out of the Louisiana legislature. At the
same time he addressed a letter to President Grant in
which he described the Southern whites as “banditti.”
This created more ill-feeling among the Southerners and
an even stronger determination that when the time was
ripe they would avail themselves of every means that they
could devise to destroy Republican rule.

In 1876 the Democrats for the first time were stronger
than they had been since before the Civil War. Hard
times in the North and the political scandals in Grant’s
régime, had turned many Northerners to the Democratic
party. The party nominated Samuel J. Tilden, of New
York. Although he had been a strong Unionist during
the war, he had opposed many of Mr. Lincoln’s war
measures, and this had pleased the Southerners. More-
over, he had gained some fame as a reformer in connec-

tion with his exposure of the Tweed Ring, New Yorkeae Ee

  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

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78 THE CHANGING SOUTH

City, while a member of the Legislature. The Republi-
cans nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, who as a
“sound-money” man, during the period of hard times was
expected by the Republicans to lift the country out of its
financial depression. His followers, however, recognized
that he couldn’t run on this issue alone, because many
Northerners were displeased with the Government?s con-
tinued control of the South, so James G. Blaine, notably,
tried to divert them by keeping up a running fire on the
South throughout the election campaign. He delivered
philippics against the “rebel control” in the South, and
stirred up additional race hatred and additional resent-
ment against Federal oppression. In 1884, the silver-
tongued orator, Robert Ingersoll, paid Mr. Blaine the
tribute of calling him a “plumed knight” for his fine
work,

When the electoral votes were counted it was found
that there were two sets of returns from Louisiana, Flor-
ida and South Carolina, while one vote of Oregon was in
dispute. Hayes needed all of these to elect him; and in-
asmuch as no method had been devised by the Constitu-
tion or by Congress to decide such a problem, an electoral
commission of fifteen members was appointed by mutual
consent to make a decision which would be accepted as
binding. The commission was to be composed of ten
Congressmen, five from each party, and five members of
the Supreme Court of the United States. This com-
mission was presumed to be bi-partisan, and the country
expected it to be above partisanship. Four Supreme Court
justices, two Democrats and two Republicans, had chosen
a fifth justice, for their representation on the commission.WHITE SUPREMACY 79

The fifth justice was a Republican, so this gave the Com-
mission eight Republicans and seven Democrats.

The Republicans on the Commission by a strict party
vote on every point that came up perpetrated one of the
most glaring cases of injustice against a political party
that has been known before or since. To begin with, the
choice of Republican electors in Louisiana had been ac-
complished, so the Democrats claimed, by the rejection
of several thousand Democrats by a Republican returning
board. The Democrats, therefore, rightfully insisted that
the Commission should go behind the returns and correct
the injustice. And the Republicans did a grimly hu-
morous thing in view of the fact that they had but nine
years before won a war based on their opposition to the
doctrine; they held that the State’s action was final; and
that to go behind the State’s action would be invading its
sovereignty! It would have been no more ridiculous had
they held that to go behind the State’s action would be
invading its right to institute slavery again. Ihe Com-
mission accepted the Republican contention in this matter
and all their other contentions. Bent upon voting strictly
according to party, it would not have been surprising had
it voted for a Negro for President had that been insisted
upon by the Republicans. In any event, the eight to seven
vote was constant throughout the procedure, and Hayes
was declared elected. The Southerners accepted the ver-
dict quietly, but to this day they believe firmly that Til-
den’s election was stolen from them,—they have consid-
erable justification for the belief,—and the episode only
served to solidify the South all the more against Republi-
canism. |ee Se TER een,

——————— eS eee

a ee,

80 THE CHANGING SOUTH

In 1874 the Congressional elections had increased the
Democratic strength to such an extent that the Republi-
cans became alarmed. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Massa-
chusetts went Democratic, and in the Middle Western
grain States the Grangers were holding the balance of
power, while only a few States in the South could be
forced into the Republican column under the military
rule. It dawned on Grant that the North was becoming
displeased with the use of force, but he was not wise
enough to remove it, and in a message to Congress in
December, 1874, he declared that without the military
control of the South Negro suffrage would be worse than
a hollow mockery.

Realizing that a new Congress, which would convene
after March 4, 1875, might make legislative changes
favorable to the South, the old Republican Congress, in
March, 1875, passed a Civil Rights Act, guaranteeing
equal rights to Negroes in hotels, public conveyances, and
places of amusement and forbidding the exclusion of them
from juries. A proposed force bill, designed against the
intimidation of Negro voters, however, failed. The Re-
publicans believed that they had established reconstruc-
tion measures which would remain in operation so long
as a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress
could be kept out of power. But they were mistaken in
this, as later events proved.

Beginning in 1873 the Supreme Court made a series of
rulings which at nearly every turn defeated the purpose
of the Reconstruction radicals. To understand the sig-
nificance of these decisions it is well to review the originalWHITE SUPREMACY 81

purposes of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments
and see how the tribunal interpreted them. The primary
purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to prevent the
Southern States from passing hostile laws against the
Negroes. It declared that all persons “born or natu-
ralized” in the United States were citizens of the United
States and forbade the States from violating the rights of
such citizens. All former slaves were born in this coun-
try so the amendment applied to them as well as to white
natives. The Fifteenth Amendment declared that the
State must not deprive a citizen of the United States of
the right to vote because of his color.

On April 14, 1874, the Supreme Court rendered an
opinion in what were known as the Slaughter House
cases. The State of Louisiana in order to abolish a large
number of slaughterhouses scattered in different sections
of New Orleans, which were regarded as a menace to
health, granted a monopoly to a company to establish a
central slaughterhouse where all butchers might do their
slaughtering on payment of a fee. The act was attacked
as unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, the
butchers claiming that it denied them the rights of citizen-
ship. But the Supreme Court in a five to four decision de-
cided that the act was legal; that since the grant of the
monopoly had never been a Federal privilege, the Court
could not interfere with the State law. In other words
the Court laid down the principle that the central Gov-
ernment, after the Civil War, was to continue to be a
Federal Government and not a unitary government in
which the States were subordinate. In a measure it was~

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82 THE CHANGING SOUTH

pronouncing the doctrine of State sovereignty, and gave
the Southerners their first real hope that in time they
could defeat the purposes of the North to give the Negro
all the rights that the white man enjoyed.

In the case of the United States vs. Reese, the Supreme
Court on March 27, 1876, declared that parts of the force
bill of 1870 which provided for the use of Federal troops
to protect the Negro in his right to vote, were uncon-
stitutional, on the ground that they did not specify that
the denial of suffrage must be on the sole ground of race
or color. A reasonable prerequisite, such as a poll tax, for
voting was permissible. This decision became what the
South looked upon as a kind of Magna Charta which
would free it from Negro dominance, and in the years
that followed it has taken every advantage of it indirectly
to deny the Negro of his right of suffrage. But the Court
was not done yet.

In the case of the United States vs. Cruikshanks, the
tribunal in 1876 held that the Amendments to the Consti-
tution left it still the duty of the State rather than the
Federal Government, to protect its citizens, even when
the whites had mobbed the blacks. The right of the cen-
tral Government, it was held, was limited to taking care
that the State governments and laws offered equal pro-
tection to whites and blacks. The Southerners were now
beginning to see daylight, from their viewpoint. They
knew that, after all, the Supreme Court was a power
that the President, Congress, or any other organization
in the nation could not diminish—and the Court was
favoring the South at every turn. The end was not yet.WHITE SUPREMACY 83

In 1883 the tribunal declared the conspiracy clause of
the Congressional Ku Klux Act of 1871 unconstitutional
and restricted the application of the law to acts of a State
through its officers and not to private citizens. In the
same year it declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 invalid.
It is important to review the provisions of that act because
the Court’s decision concerning it, marked a turning point
in the South’s fight for white supremacy. The act made
it criminal for any person to deny to any citizen on account
of race or color the full and equal enjoyment of inns,
public conveyances, theaters and other places of amuse-
ment. The act finally reached the Supreme Court as the
result of a hotel-manager in the South having refused ac-
commodations to Negroes; and the Court ruled that the
Fourteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to make
laws enforcing the amendment, but not the power to
regulate internal domestic affairs. The decision con-
tained the principle upon which the South has rested its
right to enact Jim Crow laws and upon which the people
of the South have rested their right to set up social bar-
riers between themselves and Negroes. That principle
was that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited a State
government from discriminating between whites and
blacks in its general legislation, but that this by no means
prevented a hotel-keeper or theater-manager from mak-
ing such a discrimination, nor did the amendment give
to Congress any power to regulate theaters or hotels.
This power, the Court insisted, still remained in the con-
trol of the States.

The Court opinions thus far cited reveal that the trib-Stage

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84. THE CHANGING SOUTH

unal considered that the Fourteenth Amendment merely
aimed to protect the Negro’s civil and political rights;
but that it did not give him a social status, equal, superior,
or otherwise. The matter of giving him whatever status
he may have, therefore, has been left to the individuals
in the States, and the Southerners naturally have taken
advantage of this privilege. The Court summed up
its whole attitude on the subject in the case of Plessy vs.
Ferguson in 1896. The State of Louisiana had required
that railway companies in the State should provide equal
but separate accommodations for white and Negro pas-
sengers. Plessy, a Negro, was ejected from a white com-
partment and was arrested for violating the State law.
He protested and finally got his protest before the Su-
preme Court; but the Court held that the law was con-
stitutional since it did not interfere with the civil or
political equality of the races, but was intended rather
to preserve peace and good order. The law, the Court
said, did not stamp the colored race with any badge of
inferiority unless the race chose to put that construction
upon it, and equal rights could not be secured to the
Negro by an enforced commingling of the two races.

By the year 1870, when the Fifteenth Amendment was
ratified, there were approximately 5,000,000 Negroes in
the South, and of this number between 800,000 and 900,-
000 were men of voting age. The potentialities of such
an electorate thrown to the Republican column, was an
alarming prospect for the Southerners; but fortified by
the Supreme Court decisions above mentioned, they began
gradually to establish restrictions around the NegroesWHITE SUPREMACY 85

which in time vitiated and finally destroyed their voting
power. We have already seen how the Ku Klux Klan
was used to intimidate the Negro. This organization’s
method was that of primitive cruelty and violence which
ceased, more or less, when the white men felt that the
Negroes and “carpet-baggers” had been subdued. Other
methods of denying the Negro his right to vote included
electoral tricks, such as the theft of ballot boxes, the
secretion of ballot boxes, the exchanging of boxes, the
removal of polling places to unknown places, the doc-
toring of returns, false certifications, repeating, the elim-
‘nation of names from the registry books, and illegal ar-
rests of Negroes before election day. These methods
were pursued election year after election year until 1892
when the North Carolina Republicans joined with the
Populists of that year and elected a number of State ofh-
cers and a Negro member of Congress. This alarmed
most of the Southern States, so from 1892 to 1904 Ala-
bama, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia,
and Georgia changed their constitutions so as to bar the
Negroes from the polls without violating the Fourteenth
or Fifteenth Amendment. It is surprising in view of the
anxiety which the Southern States suffered between the
years 1877 and 1892, that they had not made constitu-
tional changes before; but their failure probably was due
to the difficult process of providing for constitutional con-
ventions or for bringing constitutional amendments before
the people. In any event, when the constitutions were
changed, it is noteworthy that they were changed in con-
ventions and that the people were not given the oppor-~

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86 THE CHANGING SOUTH

tunity to ratify them. The reason for this was obvious.
The above named States between 1892 and 1904
adopted among other things in their constitutions what

The

clauses of Alabama, adopted in 1901, and of Virginia,

“‘orandfather clause.”

was known as the famous
adopted in 1902, were typical. The Alabama clause pro-
vided that registration for voting could be, in the option
of the registrar, made dependent upon whether the appli-
cant “chad served honorably in any war prior to 1898 or
in the service of the Confederate States or of Alabama,”
or upon whether the applicant was the “lawful descendant

of such a veteran.”

The Virginia clause permitted regis-
war in the army or navy of the United States, or the Con-
federate States, or of any State of the United States, or of
the Confederate States” or to “a son or grandson of any
such person.”

These clauses were vigorously enforced until 1915,
with the result that up to that time registrars barred every
Negro from registering who applied, without question,
knowing that it was impossible for a black man to prove
service in the Confederate forces.

In 1906 Oklahoma and the Indian Territories were
admitted into the Union as the State of Oklahoma, and in
December of that year a constitution was adopted by a
constitutional convention and ratified in 1907. In the
early 80’s this section of the country had been settled by
adventurers from the South, so it was not surprising that
the new State adopted the “grandfather clause” in its

organic law. The clause provided that “no person en-WHITE SUPREMACY 87

titled to vote on January 1, 1866, in any State, or who
then resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal de-
scendant of such a person shall be denied the right to
vote because of inability to read and write the Constitu-
tion.” This, of course, barred all Negroes in the new
State from voting and threw Oklahoma into the Demo-
cratic column along with the Solid South.

Inasmuch as Oklahoma was a new State the clause
caused more bitterness than it had done in the States in the
Solid South, and the Negroes made a vigorous protest.
Finally a group of them carried their case to the Federal
District Court for Oklahoma, and this Court declared the
clause unconstitutional. This created consternation and
alarm throughout the South, so the State of Oklahoma
fought the decision and appealed. The appeal finally
reached the United States Supreme Court, and for the
first time since the Civil War that tribunal in 1915 fav-
ored the Negroes in its interpretation of the Reconstruc-
tion Amendment, and declared the “grandfather clause”
unconstitutional.

The decision was hailed with delight by the Negroes
throughout the nation; and Charles D. Hilles, Chair-
man of the Republican National Committee, in a public
statement declared that the ruling would send Oklahoma
into the Republican party. But the Negroes and the Re-
publicans were delighted prematurely. They overlooked
the fact that the Supreme Court in its ruling on the
“orandfather clause”—and, by the way, the decision was
written by a former Confederate soldier, Chief Justice
White—declared that States have a right to prescribe edu-ee ee Ste ee ON ee eee

 

88 THE CHANGING SOUTH

cational tests for their voters. In the opinion of the
Southerners this saved the day; for all of them had edu-
cational tests, and the decisions on these tests were in
the hands of white registrars.

Before the “grandfather clause” had been invalidated,
the States which had resorted to it had an optional educa-
tional test, but never used it. After the “grandfather
clause” was voided they resorted to it with a vengeance,
and are still resorting to it. The educational test now
used in the South is laid down in typical manner by the
Virginia constitution. The applicant for registration must
be able to “read any section of the Virginia constitution or
understand and give a reasonable interpretation thereof
when read to him”; or the registrar may require that the
applicant “make application in his own handwriting with-
out aid or suggestion, stating name, age, date and place
of birth, residence and occupation at the time and for two
years preceding.” Presuming that a Negro was able to
read any section of the Virginia constitution and even give
what a board of constitutional lawyers would consider a
“reasonable interpretation” of the document, it must be
remembered that the decision as to whether he has ful-
filled the provisions of the law is left to the judgment of
a white registration official. The result is that no Negro,
educated or otherwise, is permitted to register.

Years before the “grandfather clause” was eliminated,
Negro leaders in the South, notably Booker T. Washing-
ton, urged the members of their race to give up their at-
tempts to acquire the privilege of voting and turn their
attention to education. Washington was particularlyWHITE SUPREMACY 89

anxious that his fellow Negroes learn agriculture and the
trades, and this they have done to a remarkable degree at
Tuskegee and Hampton; but as long as the literacy tests
are conducted as the white registration officials conduct
them now, there is no hope that the increasing number of
educated Negroes in the South will get the vote. The
South is determined that they shall not have it as long
as legal methods can be used to keep it from them.

It can be seen that technically the charges that the
Southern States are violating the Fourteenth and Fif-
teenth Amendments are unfounded. Any State in the
Union has the constitutional right to deprive a person of
the privilege to vote for such reasons as illiteracy, crime,
pauperism, insufficient age, or insufficient length of resi-
dence in a State. In the final consideration of the Fif-
teenth Amendment, therefore, it can be said truthfully
and constitutionally, that the only voting right which the
Fifteenth Amendment grants is freedom from discrimi-
nation because of race.

Everything considered, the South thus far has tri-
umphed in its fight against a black electorate. It has
learned the constitutional tricks, and though it sometimes
makes serious mistakes such as, for example, the barring
of Negroes from the Texas primary, and the attempt in
Louisiana and in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, to seg-
regate the Negroes by State law and city ordinance it
generally has succeeded in destroying in a legal way most
of the purposes of the famous Reconstruction Congress.
In the circumstances the shades of Sumner and Stevens
are gnashing their teeth in Hades, over the way the Solid|

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90 THE CHANGING SOUTH

South has maintained its white supremacy at the hands
of the highest Federal tribunal.

Even though the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of
the Negroes in the matter of segregation their victory
has been an empty one. The city of Louisville passed an
ordinance forbidding Negroes from occupying houses as
residences or places of abode, or publicly assembling in
blocks where the majority of houses were occupied by
white persons, and in like manner forbidding white per-
sons when the conditions as to occupancy were reversed,
the interdiction being based upon color and nothing more.
The ordinance was protested and carried to the Supreme
Court where it was decided that such ordinances passed by
a State or municipality were in violation of the Four-
teenth Amendment. Early in 1927 a similar case was
brought up from Louisiana, and the Court cited its de-
cision in the Louisville case. These decisions definitely
decided for all time the illegality of segregation and they
were signals for rejoicing among the Negroes, particu-
larly those in the North. But in 1926 the National Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People carried a
case from Washington before the Supreme Court which
involved a covenant between individuals, real estate oper-
ators and purchasers presumably, stipulating that certain
blocks, sections and subdivisions of property should not
be sold to persons of certain races, including Negroes,
Jews and Italians. The Court unanimously sustained the
covenant; held that it was a contract and did not violate
the Fourteenth Amendment. In the North, the weakness
of such covenants has been found in the fact that realWHITE SUPREMACY. QI

estate operators break them; but the Court’s decision in so
far as the South was concerned served to fortify its de-
termination to separate the blacks and whites as well as
to deny the blacks their civic rights and rights of suffrage.

In following out what it now looks upon as its consti-
tutional rights to treat the Negro as it does, the South
to-day does not consider that its course is an unjust one.
Again one must refer to the incontrovertible truth,—
which the South recognizes,—that the Negroes in the
South are not absorbable; that they cannot expect social
equality, even in the North. One might rejoin to this by
citing the mulatto; but it must be remembered again that
the mulatto is an outcast. He is not in the strict sense
a Negro, and he is not a white. He belongs to the twi-
light group of humanity, and provides one of the fore-
most racial tragedies of the world. It must be repeated
that the black races and white races in America must live
together, apart. And it is upon this principle that the
Solid South rests her case and fortifies it politically and
otherwise.

In view of her traditions and beliefs, in view of her
determination to abide by what she considers to be a fun-
damental truth, it is not surprising that the South, since
Reconstruction days, with one or two exceptions, has re-
mained solidly Democratic; and all signs point to the
fact that with such deep-rooted convictions in her heart
and mind, she is ready to continue to be Democratic, so
long as the candidate presented for the party’s considera-
tion is white, whether he be a Catholic, a Jew or a Scan-

dinavian.

HeheCHAPTER VII

THE “BIBLE BELT”

A Southern gentleman some years ago upon being asked
what church his son was affiliated with, replied that he was
affliated with none; that his offspring was “religiously
inclined, but hell-bent.” In considerable measure this
describes the mental attitude of the people of the South
toward religion. I mean by this that, although there are
thousands of church-members in the South who profess
to follow the tenets of their various denominations, they
are as far away from those tenets as if they were not
members. This is particularly true of the Baptists, who
outnumber all other denominations in the South. It is
amazing when one considers the gallant early history of
the Baptists in this country, how they fought for religious
freedom, how they were the guiding force that influenced
Jefferson and Madison in their fight for the separation
of Church and State, that the Baptists of the South, in
practice to-day, are moving in a diametrically opposite
direction. The Methodists are guilty of the same thing.
The old Wesleyan idea of love and charity has been sub-
stituted by an attempted rule of force and a tragic per-
version of the philosophy of brotherly love. The
Presbyterians, embracing a more intellectual group, are

much the same, so it remains for the Episcopalians and
Q2hae “BIBER BEET? 93

Catholics in the South to maintain whatever tolerance and
liberalism that exists among the churches.

According to a census taken in 1916, the last authorita-
tive one available, there were in that year 4,500,000 Bap-
tists in these Southern States which seceded from the
Union in 1860 and 1861. The Methodists numbered
2,275,000, the Presbyterians 400,000 and the Episco-
palians 144,000, making a total of approximately
8,000,000 Protestants in the South. The Roman Cath-
olics numbered a little more than 1,000,000, and of this
number 900,000 were in Louisiana and Texas. It is not
difficult to see why the Protestants rule the thoughts of
the people in the South on all social, religious and politi-
cal questions. And yet there is not literally a “Bible Belt”
in the South, as has been vigorously represented by cer-
tain writers in recent years. When I say this I mean that
the so-called “Bible Belt” is no more confined to the
South than it is to New York State, where a Methodist
bishop from his pulpit recently declared that “no man
who kisses the hand of the Pope will ever be elected Pres-
ident of the United States.” Two things in the South
prevent its people from actually forming a “Bible Belt.”
One is rank mental laziness and the other is ignorance.
I realize that this statement opposes the pet theories of
the brilliant young political and social geographers in the
North, who have made long-distance surveys of the vari-
ous intellectual and religious boundary lines of America.
The Baptist and Methodist leaders mix their ew cathedra
pronunciamentos with sly hints that draw the Southern
people to their mental lines without difficulty. For ex-|
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94. THE CHANGING SOUTH

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ample, the Northerner and Catholics are hated in the first
place, and when the former is made to appear as a sophis-
ticated unbeliever he is doubly hated. But the people
who do the hating care no more for the infallibility of
the Bible or for whether man was divinely created than
they do for whether Mahomet’s coffin swung in the air.
; They simply accept the mouthings of the spiritual leaders

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because the spiritual leaders are clever enough to paint

the intelligent people of the North as an alien race.
| The fact that these people break all the laws known
to man and the Good Book is in itself proof enough that
they care nothing for the spiritual teachings per se of the
brethren. In the circumstances the “Bible Belt” is a pure
myth. If there is a “Bible Belt” it does not hold up the
trousers of orthodoxy. Even the pulpit acrobats them-
selves do not believe in all the utterances that spring from
their lips. Most of them nowadays are well read,—that
is, they read the newspapers and the magazines to keep
a up with current events—and they are smart enough to
| know that the theory of evolution, for example, is not an
attack on Christianity, but why should they throw away
their bread and meat to feed, what is to them, non-con-

{ |structive atheism?

| Reverting to statistics, it is interesting to note that the
census of 1916 gives the six States in New England al-
most as large a majority of Catholics over the Protestants
as the latter have over the Catholics in the South. The
Catholics are particularly plentiful in the State of Mas-
sachusetts and in Connecticut. There are a total of
2,500,000 Catholics in New England and 550,000 Prot-THE “BIBLE BELT” 95

estants, according to the 1916 figures. The Methodists
and Baptists together number but 366,000. Catholics
also are in a large majority in Illinois, New York and
Pennsylvania, the three most populous States in America,
so that when the divinely inspired Book and the infalli-
bility of the Pope are considered the real “Bible Belt” in
America is in the North and East and not in the South. I
dare say that for Bible knowledge three-fourths of the
people of the South depend on what their pulpit orators
tell them because they don’t care a great deal one way or
another—but, of course, they are unhappy if a brother
of the cloth fails to paint the Northern intellectual as a
devil in disguise. “Them damn Northerners think they
are smart,” a Southerner in nearly any rural section in
the South will say as he goes about making his moon-
shine, seducing his neighbor’s daughter, going off with
his neighbor’s wife or committing murder, arson or as-
sault and battery as the case may be.

The one leavening force in the so-called religious life
of the South is the Episcopal church, but unfortunately,
this church does not reach the masses. Because of its
Catholic ancestry,—I know some of its theologians will
dispute me on this,—because of its high degree of intellec-
tuality the Episcopal church refuses to join the ranks of
anti-Catholicism. There have been, of course, here and
there, certain rectors who believed the Pope is trying
to make America a Catholic State, but the majority of the
Episcopal brethren are friendly to the Catholics because
they are not unlike them in their theology and ritual.
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96 THE CHANGING SOUTH

the South enjoy over the Catholics is, of course, the reason
for the widespread intolerance and bigotry in this section
of the country. Whatever the Catholics may do or may
desire to do, the Protestants, in the very nature of things,
may be depended upon to oppose. It should be remem-
bered that the Catholics in America still cling to the politi-
cal philosophy they entertained when they obtained
religious freedom in Maryland in the seventeenth cen-
tury. Maryland was the pivot from which they worked,
so that when they invaded other sections of the country
they carried the Maryland tradition with them. The re-
sult is that in the South, as elsewhere, the Catholics not
only are strong advocates of the separation of the Church
and the State, but they support intellectual freedom as
well. Consequently they are friendly to the Jews and
all alien peoples; they are not opposed to indulgence in
pleasures and amusements on the Sabbath.

Being in the minority in the South,—there are only a
little more than 200,000 of them outside Louisiana and
Texas, against approximately 7,000,000 Protestants,—
their views are of course attacked, and suppressed, when
possible, by the Protestants.

Educated Protestant ministers secretly recognize the
fact that evolution means nothing one way or the other in
so far as the efficacy of Christianity is concerned. Sunday
blue laws are favored by the Protestants; and the enforced
reading of the Bible in the schools is advocated because
the Protestants know it is displeasing to the Catholics—
as it is to all Americans who have a regard for their Con-
stitutional freedom.THE “BIBLE BELT” 97

I cannot refrain from stating here that the very term
Protestantism is a symbol of bigotry. It is the outgrowth
of an opposition to a man-made institution. I dare say if
the Christ Himself is peeping through the cloud rifts at
some of his so-called followers in this land of ours to-
day, He is even more melancholy than He was when one
of His disciples betrayed Him and another denied Him.
He would see a strange banner floating from the steeples
that have been created in His name, and that banner
bears the inscription, “Protestantism.” It is the symbol
of protest against an iniquity that lies in the dust of past
centuries, when it should stand for the brotherly love
which the followers at Antioch had in their hearts when
they coined the term “Christian.”

But I am digressing. The territory which is called the
“Bible Belt” actually cares little or nothing for the Bible
and what it teaches. I base this assertion on prima facie
evidence. I have noted above how all the laws of man
and God are broken by the gentry who pleasantly have
been termed “yokels” by the comedians in the pseudo-
intellentsia circles. It must not be forgotten that there
are something like 25,000,000 people in the States which
at one time formed the Confederacy. The number of
church members, however, is 9,000,000, or more than one-
third of the total population. When the number of so-
called church members who do not attend church, but
merely pay the dues and receive the annual visits of the
brethren, is considered, it is reasonable to believe that less
than one-third of the people in the South see the inside of
a church from year to year. But, nevertheless, it cannot bea
-

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98 THE CHANGING SOUTH

denied that these people—that is, the Protestant portion
of them—are influenced more or less by the shoutings
and antics of the pulpiteers. And when I say influenced,
I do not mean influenced in the matter of Christianity, but
in the matter of intolerance.

As a result of what may be called the extra-Christian
work of the shouters, pulpiteers, evangelists, reformers,
et cetera, the South unfortunately has become conspicuous
in movements that are based upon bigotry and intolerance.
Forty years ago a Jewish immigrant, unable to speak
English, got on a train which he believed was bound for
Pittsburgh. The immigration authorities had placed a
tag in the lapel of his coat upon which the name of the
Pennsylvania city was inscribed. Through a trainman’s
oversight, the poor fellow arrived in Petersburg, Virginia.
Undaunted, however, he established there a small mer-
chandising stand. In a few years he owned a store, and
in a few more years his sons were operating one of the
largest department stores in Richmond. The man’s ex-
perience was heralded to Jewry in other lands and the
Jews began casting their eyes on the South as a place of
potential self-enrichment. But the Jews were timid, so
they did not invade the South in large groups. An indi-
vidual or a family or two would locate in a town or city,
and inevitably they would prosper. In one small town in
the South, it is said, a Jew was denied the right to locate.
““We don’t allow Jews here,” the mayor said. “I see,”
said the Jew, “so that’s the reason youw’re still a village!”
Catholics and Episcopalians, however, were friendly to
the few Jews who located in the South, but the dominantTHE BIBLE, BEET 99

Protestant groups,—the Methodists and Baptists,—being
advised by their spiritual leaders that Jews were “Christ-
killers,” looked upon them with open dislike. It was
enough for the Jews to prosper right under their noses,
without affording the added insult of being the descend-
ants of the murderers of the Christ. So it came about
that the Protestant brethren took up their assaults on
three fronts: the Catholics, the Negroes, and finally the
Jews. From pulpit and hillside the word was thrown out
that if these three groups of undesirables were not sup-
pressed and driven out, if such a thing were possible, the
South would fall prey to their machinations,—to the
demoniacal reign of the Pope, to the non-Christian heath-
enism of the Jews and to the electoral and social equality
of the Negro. Hence, the organization in 1915 of the
neo-Ku Klux Klan, membership in which cost the strong
young men of the land $10.00 a head. This new move-
ment of the Klan was the direct result of the extra-Chris-
tian campaigning of the so-called Christian brethren in
the Methodist and Baptist ranks.

I have described what are the general religious,—or is
it the non-religious?—tendencies of the Southern people.
But I cannot go further without confessing that in all
the churches in the South, Catholic and Protestant alike,
there are some real Christian men and women who are
trying earnestly to uphold the essential tenets of their
faith. They are, of course, faced with fearful difficulties.
They are in an unfortunate minority. Then, too, there
are faithful church members who deal out what they be-
lieve to be Christian charity with their left hands while&

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100 THE CHANGING SOUTH

waving the flag of intolerance with their right. In and
out of the churches there is a growing number of intelli-
gent men and women in the South who are fighting re-
ligious ignorance and intolerance. It was the fashion
some years ago for such people to flee to other lands where
one could indulge in intellectual freedom and where one
could worship as one desired unmolested. But in the
present generation of young people in the South are to
be found brave spirits who are staying among their peo-
ple and trying to show them the sophistry of their Prot-
estant teachers. Such people usually are to be found in
the higher institutions of learning and at the editorial
desks of the newspapers. The University of Virginia,
the University of North Carolina and Tulane University
are glowing examples of the liberalism which undoubtedly
will guide the South to the heights of understanding and
real freedom. Such newspapers as the Columbus, Ga.,
Enquirer-Sun, the Virginian-Pilot, of Norfolk, Virginia,
which, by the way, is edited by a brilliant young Jew, a
native of North Carolina, the Columbia, S. C., Record,
the Birmingham, Ala., News, the Houston, Texas, Post-
Dispatch, and a half dozen others are waging a convincing
fight against the heathenish idols which the Protestant
leaders have set up to be worshiped by their people.
There are also in the Protestant churches themselves some
groups of the present generation who are rebelling against
the old intolerance. An example is the fight of the liberal
wing of the Virginia Baptists recently against a proposed

|anti-evolution law in that State. These same Baptists

also cried down Protestant opposition in the city of Rich-Poe Spb BRAG: IOI

mond to the erection of a statue to Christopher Columbus.
The Protestants, it seems, opposed the statue because
Columbus was a Catholic. In recent years more encour-
agement has been given by certain groups of Protestants
to the Negroes in their efforts to obtain an education. In-
terracial activities, designed to improve the welfare of
the Negroes and to create better feeling between the
blacks and whites has been promoted by prominent church-
men and laymen in the Episcopal and Baptist churches.
Jews are being received in more brotherly fashion,—al-
though it must be confessed that the social contacts be-
tween the Jews and the Gentiles in the South thus far
are confined, more or less, to business transactions. Some
of the ablest city officials and administrative heads of
business groups in the South, however, are Jews. Their
financial genius and business foresight in many of the pro-
gressive cities in the South have had much to do with
the economic welfare of the communities in which they
live.

Tolerance is showing its youthful head above the mire
of intolerance in the South, so naturally shots are being
fired at the head from many Protestant directions, and
with added desperation. If the Kingdom 1s to come as
some of the brethren profess to desire in their pulpit
musings, there are thousands in the Southland yet who do
not want to see it come in the form of a triumph over their
valiant teachings. So they humanly and naturally con-
tinue their work of broadcasting against the Devil, the
Pope, the Monkey and the Yankee.

The Methodists and Baptists, with the strongest flairaa

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102 THE CHANGING SOUTH

for evangelism of any of the Protestant denominations,
even before the Civil War gave much attention to the
religious training of the Negro, and because of the sim-
plicity of their worship Negroes flocked into the Metho-
dist and Baptist churches by droves. It soon was found
necessary to establish Negro churches in these denomina-
tions, and to-day every city and town of any consequence
has from two to four Colored Methodist and Baptist
churches. They are under the spiritual guidance of
Negro ministers of varying types. Some of them are well-
educated, level-minded and appear to be filled with real
Christianity. There was the famous Reverend Jasper of
Richmond, Virginia, who in a sermon uttered the heroic
statement that “de sun do move.” And there was the
African orator named Taylor, who at a Negro funeral laid
down the excellent theory “dat life ain’t nuthin’, brudders
an’ sisters, but addin’ and subtractin’,—an’ hyar, folks,
is a mos’ woeful case o’ subtractin’!” Such pulpiteers
usually were harmless enough, and sometimes exerted a
real spiritual influence over their people.

But there is in the present generation of Negro minis-
ters in the South a sinister tendency, which has served as
a boomerang for their white Methodist and Baptist re-
ligious sponsors. It is the poisoning of the minds of the
new generation of Negroes against the white people.
Some of the Negro pulpits in the South have become hot-
beds of anti-white sentiment, where anything from social
equality to revolution is preached. The result is that bad
feeling has been fostered, and is being fostered betweenTHE, “BIBLE BEET? 103

the blacks and whites in a more far-reaching fashion than
many of the white people realize.

In considering the influence of the Protestant churches
on the people of the Southern States, it must be remem-
bred that Article VI of the Federal Constitution, which
declares that, “No religious test shall ever be required
as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States,” and the First Amendment, which provides
that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,”
apply only to the National Government. No restrictions
are placed on the States, and they may, as some of the
Southern States have done, exclude from public office any
one who denies the existence of a Supreme Being. Ten-
nessee, in addition to prohibiting the teaching of evolu-
tion in her public schools, as contrary to belief in divine
creation, holds as ineligible for public office a man who
does not believe in God and in a future state of rewards
and punishments. And Arkansas makes such a man in-
eligible for jury service. So in a country which is en-
closed within unmistakable walls of sectionalism, as the
South has been since the Civil War, and possessed of an
overwhelming Protestantism, it is not surprising that
the Southern States are conspicuous for social and religious
movements that are colored with fundamentalism, bigotry
and intolerance.

Although the Civil War settled for all time the ques-
tion of State sovereignty in so far as it pertained to the
philosophy that a State might, at will, secede from theig

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104. THE CHANGING SOUTH

Union, the conflict did not destroy the doctrine of States’
rights. This doctrine, which has been weakened by the
tendency in the last decade or two to create a Federal
bureaucracy, was never better illustrated than in the South
where the States, under the compulsion of the Protes-
tants, apply an uncontrolled discretion to the passing of
laws and the laying down of rules that apply to human
conduct and human beliefs. The strange thing in the
South, however, is that Protestantism, not content with
placing inhibitions on the States through the privilege of
States’ rights, has sought vigorously, and in some inci-
dences succeeded, in extending these restrictions to the
Federal sphere. The example of a successful effort in
this regard was the adoption of the Eighteenth Amend-
ment and the passage by Congress of the Volstead en-
forcement act. The proposed Child Labor Amendment
to the Constitution was an example of Protestantism’s
failure to do the same kind of thing. In 1925 a Con-
gressman from Georgia and another from Tennessee
drafted a Federal anti-evolution bill, but no action was
taken on it, and nothing ever came of it. Other similar
efforts have been made by Southern representatives, urged
on by their spiritual leaders, to regulate the morals and
beliefs of the American people by Constitutional amend-
ments and legislative enactments.

But, these things being true, the amazing thing about
the South is that the people, as I have suggested above,
are not a great deal interested in the social and intellec-
tual reforms that their spiritual advisers project, unless
the proposed reforms are predicated upon the theory thatTEE SBIBLE BEET 105

the Northern heathens be barred from their borders or,
if possible, be regulated in their own lairs. The people
care nothing for fundamentalism as such. They care
nothing for social reforms as such. The truth is they
secretly dislike inhibitions. Nowadays Methodist and
Baptist laymen openly violate the church decrees against
dancing, playing cards and theater-going, and many of
the ministers in the two churches are looking upon these
things with liberal eyes. But I dare say if the brethren
believed for a moment that they could make their people
think that dancing, cards, and theaters were machinations
of the Pope and the Yankee, they could sway many of
them into believing that these three harmless forms of
amusement were as sinister as they have made them be-
lieve the theory of evolution to be.

All circumstances considered, the transcendent truth
about the South’s religious life is that the Southern peo-
ple are not unlike the Northern or Eastern or Western
people. They are good and bad in the same measure.
They violate the Ten Commandments, but in no greater
degree than peoples in other sections of the country vio-
late them. They disobey the Federal and State laws, but
in no greater measure than their neighbors north of the
Mason and Dixon line disobey them. There are South-
ern church members just as intelligent as the church
members in other sections. By the same token the North,
the East and the West are possessed of church members
who are just as ignorant,—and just as intolerant,—as those
in the South. So it is that the Southern religionists are
not unlike the religionists in other parts of the countryWii

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106 THE CHANGING SOUTH

in most things. The differences, of course, lie in the over-
whelming number of Protestants in the South, the very
marked sectionalism, and the unwavering loyalty to one
political faith.

As the people of the South become more educated, and
as the modern methods of communication and transporta-
tion bring them closer and closer to other sections of the
country, they will, in their religious attitudes and conduct
and beliefs become more and more like other Americans.
I believe it is only fair to say of the Southern religionists
as a whole that in spite of the mental and social intoler-
ances they display they have been and are now as clean
in their minds and hearts, on the whole, as the people of
any other section of the country, and much cleaner than
some peoples north of the Mason and Dixon line whose
wrong-doings constantly are filling the columns of the
daily newspapers. I do not know whether it is the result
of home training, the influence of the churches or the cli-
mate, but the Southern people are the most warm-hearted
and the best-mannered people, on the whole, that I have
ever seen anywhere in America. They should not, there-
fore, be judged too harshly for some of their apparent be-
liefs or for their reform movements and legislative
enactments, because, after all, these things are but symp-
tomatic of the desperate efforts of the brethren of the
cloth to bring in a Kingdom which I dare say would
startle them out of their boots if it actually should come
as they have prayed.CHAPTER VIII

THE ONE LAW

One of the most amazing moral and social phenomena
in modern times is the persistency with which the Protes-
tant churches in America, and particularly those in the
South, have agitated, supported and forced the passage
of laws prohibiting the making, selling and drinking of
intoxicating liquors as beverages, when they not only have
nothing in their infallible Book to uphold their philosophy
but instead have evidence that the Founder of Christianity
Himself used wine and miraculously made it. When I
say this I realize that some churchmen will argue that they
do not base their support of prohibition upon the Gospels,
but upon economic and ethical grounds, but if that were
entirely true, why have the Methodists and Baptists in-
terwoven the theory of prohibition into their religious
fabrics and made it an organic part of their religious lives
as if it were of equal or of more importance than the
doctrine of love itself?

If I understand the true meaning of Christianity, it is
predicated, above all, upon love for one’s God and for
one’s fellow man. And if I understand the true mean-
ing of temperance it has, in so far as the “divinely in-
spired” Book of the Protestants is concerned, nothing to
do with moderation in the use of intoxicating drinks, much

less total abstinence from them, but with self-control or
107~~]

we

command over all appetites and passions, mental or

|
| i 108 THE CHANGING SOUTH
bodily, including the regulation of thought, speech and

 

| behavior. I make these assertions by way of coming to
| | the subject of prohibition as it pertains to the Southern
| States. The Southern Protestants, of course, were not
solely responsible for the National prohibition laws.
Those laws were the result of the very excellent maneu-
verings of the Anti-Saloon League, which came into being
in Ohio. But Southern Protestantism gave the Anti-Sa-
loon League its greatest impetus and support by forcing
through State-wide prohibition enactments before the

Federal law was projected.
In 1910 the Southern Protestants, as the result of active
| campaigns in which the “Face on the Bar-room Floor”
and “Where is My Wandering Boy To-night” were the
| battle hymns, had succeeded in having adopted State-wide
prohibition laws in five States in the South—North Caro-
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee,—and
i by 1914 the movement had spread so successfully that
similar laws were passed in Virginia, South Carolina, Ar-
kansas, Florida and Texas, and in the border State of
Kentucky. It is noteworthy that in Louisiana where the
q Catholics are in an overwhelming majority over the

ee ON Oe Sey

Protestants, there was no prohibition law; and Louisiana,
I might add, ratified the Eighteenth Amendment by but
one vote in its Upper House in the summer of 1918.
Before the year 1910 some of the Southern States had
experimented with the system of local option. Tennessee
applied the system to the whole State, with the exception
of five of the larger cities. Arkansas had local option inTHE ONE LAW 109

fifty-six out of the seventy-five counties; Florida in
thirty-five out of forty-six counties; Mississippi in fifty-
six out of seventy-seven counties; and North Carolina in
seventy out of ninety-seven counties. As far back as the
year 1833 the State of Georgia had tried local option, but
a few years later gave it up. Before the year 1893 South
Carolina had a licensing system which amounted to local
option, but in 1893 it adopted a State dispensary system.
Under this system, which was not unlike the systems used
in the wet provinces of Canada to-day, the State was the
sole purveyor of liquor, buying wholesale from the man-
ufacturers and selling retail through dispensaries under
public management and only for consumption off the
premises.

But what was the result of these liquor laws? The
answer is that the experiences of the States that had
them should have warned the South against what would
happen if the whole country were placed under a liquor
ban. In those counties where local option existed, illicit
liquor was poured in in large quantities, and in those
States where State-wide prohibition existed, there was
no dearth of illicit drink from the wet States; and as for
the cities of Charleston and Columbia under South Caro-
lina’s dispensary system, the blind-tigers and speak-easies
were to be found upon every corner and down every alley,
if the seeker but knew the countersigns.

These experiences, however, were but a phase of the
liquor problem. While the counties and States were es-
tablishing bans on liquor, the moonshiners back in the
mountains and hills, principally those in Virginia, West) IIO THE CHANGING SOUTH
Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky, were making
| moonshine as nonchalantly as their grandfathers and
great-grandfathers before them had made it, and were
| supplying the thirsty ones in the dry areas with more
“corn” than they had ever supplied them with before!
But experience apparently is no teacher of men, par-
ticularly later generations of men, and so Southern Prot-
estantism joined the ranks of the Anti-Saloon League and
carried the fight to the great Dome in Washington. For
once in their lives the brethren in the South put their
shoulders alongside the shoulders of the brethren from
Ohio and Maine and New York and Illinois and there
was a great deal of hell to pay before they got through.
Of course when the brethren began their crusade they
merely considered it an extra-mural duty, so to speak,
| but when the laws had been written into the Constitution
and on the statute books, they made the drinking of water
a part of their ritual and the sine qua non of their prayers.
Under the local option and State-wide prohibition laws
the advocates of prohibition were faced with a problem
that could be solved only in the National legislature, and
this was one of the chief reasons why they turned to
Washington for action that would affect the nation as a
i whole. Congress, under the Constitution, controlled in-
terstate commerce, and the Supreme Court had ruled that
without the consent of Congress no State could prevent a
railway or other carrying agency from bringing liquor to
any point within its borders from outside. This left the
dry States in the réle more or less of Canutes trying to
keep the luscious tides from deluging the unworthy drink-EEE FONE, LAW: III

ers in their commonwealths, so they knew that prohibition
would be a hollow mockery unless they spread it over
the whole country like a blanket. Little did they realize
how much hollower the mockery would be when that had
been accomplished!

By this time the philosophy of temperance as it is writ-
ten in the New Testament (Acts xxiv. 25; Gal. v. 23 and
2 Peter i. 6) evolved into a philosophy of temperance
which applied solely to the problem of liquor drinking.
The good brethren forgot,—or else they didn’t care,
that the infallible Bible does not forbid the use of in-
toxicants, and made a march on the nation’s Capital in
behalf of prohibition with even more zeal than they would

 

have carried palms to Jerusalem. They had made efforts
to prevent drinking through preaching Christian love
and charity; they had, in some cases, exacted pledges from
hard drinkers not to touch another drop and they had ex-
horted with threats of hell-fire; but none of these things
had done any good, so they would save the sinners and
prevent others,—some yet unborn,—from acquiring the
drink habit by passing prohibition laws.

In their forgetfulness of the real purposes of Chris-
tianity they overlooked a fundamental truth which has ap-
plied to government and legislation since the dawn of
civilization. That is that such laws cannot be enforced
without a general sentiment in their favor, and that if
such a sentiment really exists in the hearts of men, and
not superficially as the result of pulpit oratory, then there
is no need of such laws. The gleam of reform had
dazzled them and blinded them, and in their zeal they—

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112 THE CHANGING SOUTH

established an institution which has done more to destroy
the finer things of the old South than Yankee batteries
or the guns of the abolitionists could have done in a hun-
dred years.

But whether or not the Protestants in the South were
right or wrong in principle concerning the issue of pro-
hibition, two truths must be recognized. One is that in-
stead of weakening in their stand on prohibition, the
Southern voters are as dry, if not dryer, in so far as their
ballots are concerned ‘than they were when the theory
of prohibition first invaded the territory in the old State-
wide and county option.days. The other is that economi-
cally prohibition has wrought some good in the smaller
towns in the South and in the rural districts and in the
industries. It would be idle to deny this much as I
oppose the whole theory of prohibition.

It is not amiss here to review the National legislation
and the part the South played in it. When the Eight-
eenth Amendment came up for ratification, forty-six of
the forty-eight States, including all the Southern States,
ratified it. Connecticut and Rhode Island, proverbial
Protestants against changes in the organic law, were the
only States that did not go on record as being for or
against it. That was in the year 1919, and eight years
have passed, up to this writing. It is noteworthy that the
four Congresses that have been elected during the eight-
year period have grown dryer and dryer, in spite of what
the anti-prohibitionists have predicted and asserted. In
each succeeding session, measure after measure pertain-
ing to prohibition and its more rigid enforcement haveTHE ONE LAW 113

been put through successfully. The wet vote in the two
houses has never been more than 20 per cent., and usually
it has been 10 per cent. Unquestionably this alignment
means that the majority of the country’s electorate have
placed themselves on the dry side by electing dry Con-
gressmen. And in the South, where the Democrats are
in the ascendency, it never occurs to the politicians to
nominate a wet candidate. They know he could never be
elected, because they know that whatever the personal
sentiments of the voters may be concerning prohibition
they invariably will vote dry. The hardest drinker who
has no difficulty in getting all the illicit liquor his cellar
and gullet will hold, goes upon the theory that, “after all,
when it comes to the pinch, brother, I don’t want to do
anything that might make it possible for the saloons to
come back.” The inconsistency of such a statement, of
course, lies in the fact that in the large cities in the South
saloons are still operating for those who know the coun-
tersign, while the moonshiners continue to furnish their
old-time products in even larger quantities than they did
in the days before National prohibition. The dry voter
who is wet personally offers a modern political phenome-
non; and so long as he exists there will be no successful
outspoken wet statesman in the Southern States. The
Protestant brethren have a right to feel proud for that
much.

Dealers in illicit liquor in the South, like those in the
North, are not in the business for their health. They are
looking for profits, and because the risk is great they
charge handsome prices for their goods. The result isa et

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114. THE CHANGING SOUTH

that farm hands and small farmers in the rural districts
and small towns are unable to pay the prices asked for
“bootleg,” and therefore leave it alone. The same thing
is true of men working on small wages in the South’s in-
dustrial plants. Many of the farmers, however, make
cider, and the workers in the city concoct home brews, but
generally speaking, there is less drinking among these two
groups, compared with the drinking a decade or two ago.
In the cities of the South conditions are not unlike those
in the large urban centers in the North and East. The
children of the man who used to come home and beat his
wife and failed to provide shoes for his offspring are now
carrying hip flasks while father soberly brings in the
bacon. One of the glaring evils of prohibition is the way
in which it has made tipplers of boys and girls of high
school age in a section of the country where the people
at one time prided themselves on the purity of home life
and on the good manners and deference of the young-
sters. Boys and girls nowadays have taken up the art of
petting and drinking to a degree that makes some sociolo-
gists fear for the future. In the homes of the middle
class and the well to do, the drinking,—and sometimes the
petting,—is indulged in by the elder people too, so that in
a Southern home to-day it is not altogether unusual to see
cocktails served at social gatherings, save perhaps at those
held in a parish house or in a Sunday-school building.
Sometimes a city of, say, from 50,000 to 60,000 peo-
ple will receive most of its liquor supply from one or two
counties surrounding it. A glowing example is the city of
Roanoke, Virginia, one of the most progressive towns ofTHE ONE LAW II5

its size in the South. Roanoke county, in which it 1s sit-
uated, is bounded by Franklin, Bedford, Floyd, Mont-
gomery, Botetourt and Craig counties. It would be safe
to say that these counties supply half the illicit liquor that
is used by the parched-throated gentry in Roanoke, and
that half the supply of the counties is provided by Frank-
lin county. Some of the best liquor that enters Roanoke
probably comes from Baltimore, Norfolk, and Louisville,
Kentucky; but the sturdy sons who “are ready for any
fate” and who are willing to drink anything that has alco-
hol in it, depend on the products that come from the coun-
ties. Of course, there are a handful of State and Federal
dry agents making raids and clogging up the dockets of the
United States District Court, but their work has no more
effect on the flood than the levees seem to have had in the
Mississippi valley in the spring of 1927. Floyd county
at one time was noted for its buckwheat. The hot cakes
made from this delightful grain became proverbial in
Virginia, and even in lands beyond the seas. But, after
the National prohibition laws went into effect, the Floyd
county gentry, following the advice of the experts to go
in for diversification, have, I understand, gone in for a
very profitable business in corn and rye, which it might
be added is measured by the quart and not by the bushel.

Norfolk, Virginia, is a port of entry for illicit liquor,
as are all the South Atlantic seaports,—Wilmington,
Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, and New Orleans on the
Gulf. In New Orleans the people have never had any
reason for believing that the Eighteenth Amendment and
the Volstead act are on the books. This is because the cityJe

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Se re Or ae ee

116 THE CHANGING SOUTH

has a large French Catholic population where wine not
only is good for the stomach’s sake, but where the drink-
ing thereof is looked upon as a gesture of loyalty in mem-
ory of sunny France.
The city of Atlanta gets its water supply from the Chat-
H | tahooche River, above the mouth of Peachtree Creek,
E fifteen miles distant; but its bootleg supply comes from
3 every hill and stream in a radius of twenty-five miles.
Its best liquor, however, comes from Savannah, Mobile
and Louisville. The town is a great center for the sale
of horses and mules; but the mule that predominates is
“white mule.” The result is that the Georgia metropolis,
. anxious to be the “(New York of the South,” outdoes the
; Empire City in its wetness, in spite of the fact that it is
the see of a Methodist bishop and the headquarters for
important Methodist and Baptist institutions of learning.
Atlanta is the home of the free and the brave—free drink-
ers who are brave enough to drink anything with alcohol
in it—and they are recruited from the ranks of all classes
of the gentry, including the Ku Klux Klan, whose head-
quarters 1s in the town, and some of the best of the Protes-
tant groups,—the Methodists, Baptists, and, sad to say,
| the Presbyterians. It is idle to speak of the Episcopalians,
because they simply are divided into two classes: those who
oppose prohibition and those who oppose it, but vote dry.
The city of Birmingham also is the headquarters for
Methodist and Baptist schools. The town lies between
two mountains from which are extracted the ores that go
into the making of America’s steel products. The
lowland between bears the easily remembered name Jones
Valley. But ores are not the only things that are ex-

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————tracted from the near-by mountains. Thousands of the
Joneses in the valley are supplied with liquor, therefrom.
But the city also is possessed of fastidious drinkers who
get their stuff from Mobile and Louisville, considering it
to be the de luxe of the alcoholic world. Among the
young people and many of the elders in the Alabama city
is the same modern spirit that marks the large cities in the
North. Hip flasks are the symbols of “good sports,” and
the bridge gathering that bears no witness to cocktails is
considered old-fashioned and distasteful. But it cannot
be denied that the workers in the furnaces and steel mills
in and around the city are a sober lot because their wages
wont permit them to pay the prevailing bootleg prices—
nor have they the money to go to Mobile, Louisville or
Canada, as the case may be, for the sole purpose of
drinking.

It is interesting to consider the town of Montgomery,
Alabama, in the center of the South’s “cotton belt.”
There was a time when its chief industries had to do with
the manufacture of fertilizers, machine-shop products,
cotton goods, lumber products, cigars, harness, stoneware,
bricks—and, God save their Protestant souls, beer!
From last accounts these industries, including beer, with
rye and corn added in abundance, are still the life of the
town. This place was the “cradle of the Confederacy”
until May, 1861, when the capital of the Confederate
States was removed to Richmond. There probably is no
drier community in the South politically than Montgom-
ery—nor is there actually a wetter one, in point of popu-
lation and consumption.

Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy through the

THE ONE LAW 11750; Serle eal wince Nida fapapamecioaninn A

 

118 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Civil War, may be termed the heart of the South in so far
as the Southern traditions and memories are concerned,
although Nashville, Tennessee, keeps alive the spirit of
the old South in almost as great a degree. In Richmond
are to be found the sees of two Protestant bishops and one
Catholic bishop. In addition it has three or four Baptist
institutions of learning and a Presbyterian theological
seminary. Several Protestant religious weeklies are
printed there. The whole atmosphere is soaked in an
aura of purity and holiness. But, the manufacture of
cigars, cigarettes, chewing tobacco and snuff being the
chief industry, that aura is a little mixed with tobacco
smoke. I mention this because some good Americans con-
sider tobacco as great an evil as liquor, and it will be re-
membered that in Kansas and Utah the dreadful weed
was prohibited—for a time. But, strange to say, smoking
is not a sin in Richmond. Some of her bishops and min-
isters smoke, holding that the indulgence is good for the
mind and body. But from Richmond the philosophy 1s
broadcast that liquor and the drinking thereof are sinful,
and this philosophy is supported by a powerful hierarchy,
including the Protestant leaders and a State Anti-Saloon
League whose edicts are feared by candidates and politi-
cians as greatly as the ancients feared the thunder of
Jove.

But, alas, Richmond drinks; she drinks hard and she
drinks freely. To make a long story short the heart of
the old South is not always a sober heart; and there
probably is no town in America of Richmond’s size which
can boast of more gulping of intoxicants nor more arrestsTHE ONE LAW 119

for drunkenness per annum. There, as in other Southern
communities, the voters line up at the polling places and
respond to the orders of the dry hierarchy by voting dry—
but with equal zeal they line up at social functions, at
the clubs, at “home parties” and indulge in the pastime
of swallowing fluid that makes them dizzy.

In so far as the Protestant hierarchy’s attitude toward
the prohibition problem in the South is concerned, the
hierarchy is not unlike the sailor who was stranded on the
one-acre island and thought he had landed on a con-
tinent. But that is merely an attitude. Every man,
woman and child in the South knows that prohibition
there is, save in the case of certain citizens in the rural
sections and in the industries, a farce and a failure. Per-
haps the time will come when the Southern people will
face the facts honestly, and when the brethren will learn
that prohibition is not a sine gua non of Christianity, but
that day will never come so long as the men and women
who are personally opposed to prohibition and drink
what, when and how they please, go to the polls and vote
dry. If such people would express their real views pub-
licly, and transcribe these views upon the ballot, it would
be a signal to the politicians to clamber down from the
water wagon and jump into the bootlegger’s truck. In
any event, the wet-dry voter in the South is a political
phenomenon that is second in interest and importance
only to the Christian brother who believes that Christ
died on the Cross to save sinners from drinking them-
selves to death, and for that alone.—_* ee ne ae ee cee —
setae Aetiinatptith atin TN - iemanan gate eipemscamin_

CHAPTER IX

SOCIAL CONDITIONS

It often has been said that history repeats itself; and
no better illustration of this is to be found than in the
aims and purposes of Protestantism. For example, in
the Middle Ages the Catholic Church’s casuistry by which
it laid down laws that governed the beliefs and conducts
of its people and exacted of them a blind faith, and against
which the Protestants finally turned, is repeated in Amer-
ica to-day by the Protestant churches themselves in their
insistence upon such legislation as the prohibition and
anti-evolution laws, and in the insistence that the Bible
shall be read in the public schools. It probably is unfair
to say that the Protestants are trying to establish a state
church, but it cannot be denied that the manner in which
they are trying to regulate human conduct and human
thinking, in effect, amounts to the same thing.

But, while these things unfortunately are true, this
much must be said of the Southern Protestants as com-
pared with Protestants in other sections of the country;
they have wrought as much good; they have maintained
just as high standards of living; they have produced as
many genuinely fine men and women; and they have also
produced what are probably as sincere and self-sacrificing
brethren of the cloth as have been produced per 1,000

population in any other section of America. No man
120SOCIAL CONDITIONS TON

can honestly discuss Protestantism in the South without
admitting these facts. So, when the stultifying stands
that Protestantism in the South has taken on such matters
as prohibition, evolution and other prohibitive measures,
like the bans on theaters, cards and dancing, have been
discounted, Southern Protestantism stands out to-day, in
my opinion, as the leader of American Protestants in their
efforts to lift society to a higher plane. It will be said
by some, of course, that this does not mean a great deal
because Protestantism throughout America has failed and
is continuing to fail. However that may be, I stick to my
contention.

One of the finest influences which the Methodist and
Baptist churches exert in the South is among the children.
Their Sunday schools are unsurpassed in the country for
character-building. Little children, it should be remem-
bered, are too young to become involved in the evils of
drink or to be in danger of hell-fire from delving into
books on the theory of evolution. The Methodists and
Baptists have a way of making the Gospel stories inter-
esting for them where the Episcopalians and Presbyterians
fail. I must confess that I do not know why this 1s.
The Episcopalians and Presbyterians belong to the more
intellectual groups of religion, and the Episcopalians, par-
ticularly, are rated as among the stiffest and coldest re-
ligionists we have in the land to-day. These qualities
may have something to do with their failure to interest
and train the children in the Sunday schools. I have
been told that the Methodist and Baptist men’s Bible
classes and Sunday-school pupils are taught by especially.
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| 122 THE CHANGING SOUTH

trained men and women, whereas the Episcopalians and
Presbyterians do not indulge in intensive training for their
teachers.

The Methodist and Baptists, although no more gen-
erous-hearted than the Episcopalians and Presbyterians,
deal out charity in larger quantities and in more different
ways. They have more orphanages; they have more
homes for the aged; and they have more and better edu-
cational institutions than their fellow Protestants. Some
of the finest colleges in the South are sponsored by them;
although it must be said that the University of the South,

Sewanee, Tenn., which is sponsored by the Episcopal
church, and Hampden-Sidney, of Virginia, sponsored by
| the Presbyterians, are among the finest in the land.

There are among the Methodist and Baptist laymen

: in the South some of the leading citizens in that section
of the country who, having made their success, give

largely of their time and money to philanthropic work

a and to that branch of church work which has to do with
social service. In no section of the country to-day is there

 

—_————— oe 5

} a wider range of activities designed to improve and benefit

mankind among churches than in the South to-day. In
. the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky,
uM West Virginia and Tennessee, extensive church missions
and training schools have been established for the ig-
norant mountaineers. A notable mission work is that of
the Blue Ridge missions, forty in number, in the Diocese
of Virginia of the Protestant Episcopal church. The first
of these, was established by Dr. Frederick W. Neve, an

Englishman, thirty years ago. To-day a mission homeSOCIAL CONDITIONS 12g

and training school are being operated within a day’s walk
of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

The great range of activities of the Protestant churches
in the South, together with their foreign mission work,
should be enough to shame their brethren in the North
who speak of them as doing nothing but chanting hymns
and performing acrobatic stunts in their pulpits. In the
Spring of 1927, in a Presbyterian church in Philadelphia,
a policeman was called in to quell a riot because the pastor
had been accused of kissing some of the comely members
of his flock. A few weeks later when the pastor of a
Baptist church in Philadelphia undertook to defend a
Roman Catholic aspirant for the Presidency, fifty mem-
bers of his flock walked out on him, and the pastor re-
quested his organist to play a funeral march. In no
church in the South, not even in one of the Holy Roller
variety, have I heard of such displays of impropriety.

Northern critics of the Protestant churches in the South
have specified their intolerance in the matter of the Cath-
olics, prohibition, evolution, et cetera, but I have seen
none who has been fair enough to point to the widespread
social service which has demanded their time and money.
And, as I have said, this has had good results. There 1S
a definite refining influence for children in the homes.
I must confess that when they reach the high school age
they get away from much of this and emulate their North-
ern brothers and sisters in the practice of petting and
carrying hip flasks.

The Southern woman provides one of the fine re-
freshing hopes for a better civilization in her beauty, herae

 

 

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124 THE CHANGING SOUTH

charm, her integrity, her loyalty and her ability to influ-
ence into ways of right living those who come within
her circle. I dare say the Southern mother of this type
has done more than any other factor to keep alive the finer
traditions of the old South. But the Southern woman,
like the women of America generally, has changed in
many ways. In the measure in which the South has trav-
eled from the crinoline to the short skirt and from the
pompadour to the bob, so has the woman of the South
traveled; but I must say this much for her: she 1s not as
greatly influenced by the feminist movement as her
Northern sister, and the masculine type of woman in
the South is rare. Economic conditions, the ever changing
things that enter into what we call industrial and com-
mercial progress have had less effect on the true woman
of the South than on the women in other sections of
America. But this does not mean that she has not gone
somewhat along with the tide. The Southern woman is
just as addicted to the “club idea” as her Northern sister.

The contrast which time has wrought is to be found
by reviewing the evolution of the Southern woman since
the Civil War. During the war a benefit performance for
the wounded soldiers was being given in a small Virginia
town. The daughter of an aristocratic plantation owner
was asked to take part in it. NHer father refused to let
her do it upon the ground that “ladies do not make public
appearances.” This gentleman’s wife upon a Sunday
rode to church in an old fashioned hack. The hack door
became locked in some unknown manner, and when the
lady arrived at church she found that she couldn’t getSOCIAL CONDITIONS Th

out of the hack because she wore hoop skirts, so she sat in
the vehicle in front of the church and followed the serv-
ice. Southern ladies nowadays do not hesitate to give
their services to any worthy cause, as the World War
period disclosed, whether it is to cheer up soldiers, to
whom they have never been introduced, or whether they
are asked to knit socks. And as for getting out of the
modern hack,—which may be a Ford or a Rolls-Royce,—
the Southern lady of to-day is probably more agile than
her Northern sister.

The Southern woman, of course, goes in for all the
latest fashions and fads, but she does so more cautiously
than the woman of the North. A New York newspaper
man who visited the city of Richmond in the Spring of
1927 remarked how the skirts of the women he saw on
the street there were from two to three inches longer than
those worn by the New York women. But had he gone
to a meeting of the local League of Women Voters or to
a conference of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs
he would have seen the women doing just as they would
do in New York, in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts.

Until the year 1900 ladies in the South were not sup-
posed to paint or black their eyebrows, although even
the most genteel of them resorted to the faintest of per-
fumes and powders. Southern fathers considered paint-
ing and eyebrow blacking to be a vulgar art confined to
actors and actresses—and to the women of the street.
After 1900 a change came, and it was not many years
before a man had difficulty in determining who was and
who was not painted among the women he knew.eee
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126 THE CHANGING SOUTH

For a period of twenty years after the Civil War a gen-
tleman in Virginia or South Carolina might be seen rising
to his feet and bowing when a lady passed by his house,
although the sidewalk on which she journeyed might be
fifty or seventy-five feet distant. A Virginia or South
Carolina gentleman would no more think of doing such
a thing to-day than a business man would think of rising
from his chair every time his stenographer comes into his
office. In many cities of the South gentlemen’s hats are
removed even in business elevators when women are
present. This custom which has died out altogether in
the North gradually is disappearing in the South.

Before 1900 young ladies were rarely ever permitted
out after dark without escorts, and in Charleston and
Richmond this custom is still followed, more or less, but
in the South generally, especially among the younger gen-
eration, women and girls walk about the streets as freely
and readily as men. One of the most painful sights that
greets the eyes of an old Southerner is to see young girls
loafing at cigar and drug store corners day or night in the
same fashion that young men loafed at such places
twenty-five or thirty years ago. Such girls often may be
members of the leading families of the community.

The automobile has brought unfavorable develop-
ments to the South just as it has to other sections of
America. Joy rides are not infrequent, and have dis-
astrous effects. Girls from the best families participate in
these adventures, the principal features of which are
petting, using the contents of hip flasks and patronizing
roadhouses. The widespread indulgence in joy rides, ISOCIAL CONDITIONS 127

dare say, is one of the results of the destruction of the
red-light districts in the cities of the South a few years
prior to and during the World War. This movement
swept the country and the South carried it out probably
more rigidly than the cities of the North. The result is
that the ancient trade is carried on in automobiles and
assignation houses and that the scarlet woman often 1s
found residing in the best neighborhoods. This age-old
problem, of course, never has been solved satisfactorily,
and probably never will be. So desperate have the good
people in some communities in the South become over the
situation, that in one important city, I am told, the min-
isters held a secret meeting and recommended that the red-
light district, under rigid medical supervision and regula-
tion, be reéstablished. It is doubtful, however, that the
red-light districts will ever come into being again. Even
those persons who might favor them as being the lesser
of two evils find the plan too repugnant and revolting to
sanction. In any event, the problem is one which is giving
the Southern States even more concern possibly than the
Northern commonwealths, because the Protestants in the
South take the matter far more seriously.

One noticeable thing about Southern society since the
year 1900 is the ascendency in nearly all activities, business
and social alike, of the middle class of fifty years ago and
the newly rich. Citizens from these two groups make up
the business and social leadership in most of the com-
munities, and have forced the aristocrats and blue bloods
to step aside. This, however, is nothing more than history
repeating itself, and probably is as it should be. When128 THE CHANGING SOUTH

one remembers the Cromwellian era and how peers were
made of peasants, and going back to the ancient Greek and
Roman days to how the lower classes ultimately swept
over the patricians, or to the French Revolution, or to
the Russian Revolution in modern times, one has no right
to be surprised at the bloodless social revolutions that go
on from time to time in America. In the South such a
situation is as it should be for more reasons than one, but
one important justification is that those persons who be-
long to what were aristocratic families of fifty years ago,
for various reasons have failed to maintain their tradi-
tions, or they have been unable economically or otherwise
to meet the changing times. Fortunately, in the new
ranks, are to be found some of the best types of modern
manhood and womanhood, due partly to their intermar-
riage with the best bloods. Notable exceptions to these
changes are to be found in Richmond and Charleston,
where the blue bloods not only are as exclusive as they
were half a century ago, but where they still maintain a
business and social leadership.

The feminist movement which has swept America, of
course, has made many changes in the South. One of the
saddest for the Southerner who is sentimentally inclined,
is the way in which the women themselves slowly but
surely have destroyed chivalry in men and eliminated
from their relationships anything resembling the old-
time romance. There was a day when the young swain
would write verse to his lady, in the Byronic temper, or
after the fashion of Scott, Shelley, or Keats. If a youth
seriously were to present such stanzas to his girl friendSOCIAL CONDITIONS 129

to-day, he would be the object of her heartiest laughter.
I confess that he probably would deserve it, because
Southern young men and women, like young men and
women of the age everywhere, have adopted more sub-
stantial attitudes toward each other. While there prob-
ably is more tenderness, even some romance in comparison,
between the sexes in the South than in the North, the
frankness and lack of convention which exist between
boys and girls in the North also is to be found in the
South—and, no doubt, it is fortunate, when modern so-
cial conditions are considered. Southern girls before 1900
were told by their fathers and brothers to stay at home
and knit and look pretty, and were not allowed to make
their own living. All that has changed. The business
woman, or the business girl, is almost as prevalent in the
South as she is in the North. When she first appeared
men were skeptical, but gradually she is being recognized,
and in some communities women are in business and pro-
fessional posts of the highest responsibility.

Southern communities fortunately are not as harassed
with the housing problem as Northern cities. The towns
of the South, of course, have their Negro sections where
poverty and squalor are found to the nth degree, but
generally speaking the white populations fare from thirty
to forty per cent. better than the whites in the cities of
the North, particularly in the metropolitan sections.
There are no tenements in the South, save in the Negro
quarters. In the industrial towns in the South many of
the large corporations provide the most modern living
quarters and facilities for their employees, and nothing isass

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130 THE CHANGING SOUTH

wanting in sanitation and healthful surroundings. One
thing which, however, has been felt more keenly in the
South by the housewives than by those of the North is the
servant problem. This applies to rural as well as to
urban communities. The economic conditions of the
Negro in the South gradually are improving from year
to year as the result of education, and often the educated
ones establish businesses of their own, or the male mem-
bers of the households are able to provide for the family
and prevent the women from “hiring out.” The result is
that Negro cooks, housemaids and washerwomen are be-
coming scarcer and scarcer in communities where ten and
twenty years ago they were pleading for work. Their
new condition has enabled them to be altogether inde-
pendent, and in some communities they have established
what amount to union codes regarding pay and working
hours. I am told that in the city of Norfolk, Virginia,
soon after the close of the World War a group of Negro
women organized, fixed their pay and working hours and
established what they called a “black list.” On this list
were the names of white housewives who in their opinion
had mistreated cooks, maids and washerwomen in various
ways, and no Negress in the organization was expected to
hire out to any person so listed. The organization, how-
ever, did not last long because the Negresses would hire
out secretly at almost any wage in time of economic de-
pression.

Inasmuch as the white woman of the South for so many
years depended upon Negro servant help, the want of
servants has provided a real hardship, particularly for theSOCIAL CONDITIONS 131

older generation of women. Nowadays, the urban South-
erners resort to apartment life in a degree that almost
equals the urban dwellers of the North. Only the
wealthy Southerners can afford large homes and a retinue
of servants. The younger generation of married couples
has learned to do without servants, entirely in some cases.
This has developed a new species of Southern gentleman
—the man who helps his wife to do the housework, in-
cluding the hanging out of washing, the scrubbing of
floors, bathing babies and going to market. The cavalier
of war days and reconstruction days knew less about such
things than the average mountaineer knows about Tam-
many Hall, but the modern Southern husband can give
the Northern husbands who even before the Civil War
helped his wife with the housework, a run for his money.
The South has its pauperism, but it is far from being
like it was during and immediately after the Civil War.
It is noteworthy that the members of many of the old
aristocratic families are improvident in money and busi-
ness matters. The women were never taught to be busi-
ness-like, many of them never handling money until they
were adults, and the men, only too often, were never
taught the value of a dollar, the idea seeming to be, until
about the year 1900, that a blue-blooded Southern gentle-
man must give his thought to being a gentleman and a
scholar and not to the very important matter of meeting
erocery bills and paying taxes. Such an attitude has
brought tragedy to more than one old Southern family;
and while the excuse often is given that the war left them
penniless and unable to provide for themselves, it oftenpe ten oe ST
Se

~ Ne ee NS ee eo j

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

132 THE CHANGING SOUTH

has been the case that opportunities to recoup their for-
tunes and to maintain their economic as well as their social
eminence, have been thrust aside by nothing more than
downright improvidence.

As a result of the changed economic conditions in the
South, including the housing problem, the average South-
erner, in spite of the fact that he probably is better off
now than he was in 1900 or prior to that time, rarely ever
finds himself in the position to extend the proverbial hos-
pitality for which the South once was noted. The matter
of hospitality on the old-time scale and in the old-time
manner, is confined altogether to the wealthy Southern-
ers. There is probably among them the same warmth
and charm that was found in the old Southern homes, but
many of these wealthy citizens belong to the newly rich,
and do not, as hard as some of them may have tried to
learn, know the technique of the old Southern hospital-
ity. The day when a poor relation would come to spend
a week and stay six months has passed. The new genera-
tion of Southerner doesn’t have the patience, nor, perhaps,
the love for the poor relation that was extended in the old
days, and he or she, as the case may be, soon is informed
that the house is crowded and that his or her company
would be more respected at a distance.

However, I know of the case of a man in Richmond of
moderate means who but a few years ago offered a young
medical student, his son’s friend, the use of his home
while studying medicine in the Virginia capital. The fel-
low spent four years at the Richmonder’s home, did not
pay him a cent board, and is now, I understand, a prom-SOCIAL CONDITIONS 133

inent doctor in New York. The Richmonder thought
nothing of the matter, and has, I have heard, taken an
aged friendless lady, who is no blood kin to him, into his
home. This gentleman belongs to the old school, and
although there are many men in the South who probably
possess his generous impulses, there are few who put them
into practice nowadays because of the changed economic
conditions.

On large plantations in the South where crops are cul-
tivated and harvested on a large scale or where cattle is
raised in large numbers, farming is such as to attract
labor, but it must be paid wages almost equal to those paid
by industrial plants in the cities. This means that small
farmers in the South are well-nigh without labor, white
or black. It also means that the South has been hurt
worse than any other section of the country by the mi-
gration from farms to cities. Rural life probably 1s even
more attractive than it was a quarter of a century ago. A
thrifty, able farmer, with a small farm, which he can
operate himself, with the help of one or two hired men,
who may be his sons, and with the help of his wife, can
live comfortably. He may have an automobile which can
travel over good roads to the cities. He may have a
private lighting plant, a private water-supply plant, a
telephone, a radio, a truck garden, plenty of milk cows,
hogs, poultry and other minor means to make farm life
content.

But the average small farmer in the South, unfortu-
nately, is not thrifty. He is either too fond of being a
“gentleman farmer,” after the old manner,—that is toae

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134 THE CHANGING SOUTH

say, one who prefers watching others do the work while
he commands,—or else he is too ignorant and lacking in
vision to make a success of his farm. About the year 1900
and for a decade thereafter small Southern farmers were
reluctant to adopt modern agricultural methods, but the
work of State agricultural departments and their so-called
county agents, have brought about a revolutionary change
in many of the Southern States. Dairying is being done
scientifically; fruit orchards have been developed by scien-
tific means; and scientific methods of farming have been
applied to other phases of agricultural work. But, in spite
of these things, the farmers in the South have probably
been the hardest hit by the labor problem; and the
Southerners, of course, suffer along with their brother
agriculturists in other sections in the matter of supply and
demand. Many of them in the cotton belt are beginning
to see the wisdom of diversification, and in many of the
States mutually profitable codperative organizations have
been formed with successful results.

At this writing there is. developing a “back-to-the-
farm” movement in the South, which in time may have
gratifying results. It is noticeable, too, that wealthy
Southerners, in increasing numbers, are establishing coun-
try places. Some of the old colonial mansions are being
bought and rebuilt; and the craze for antique furniture
and furnishings has struck the South as it has everywhere
else. There probably is no more delightful way of liv-
ing than on an old Southern plantation whose mansion has
been rebuilt and modernized and equipped with all the
modern conveniences, not to mention such luxuries asSOCIAL CONDITIONS 135

swimming pools, tennis courts, golf links, gun galleries,
et cetera. Such a place is a paradise compared with the
plantation and its manse of fifty years ago, where all the
inconveniences known to rural life were suffered for the
sake of maintaining what amounted to a feudal system.
Social conditions in the South, of course, have been in-
fluenced by the ever-changing forces that have affected
and are continuing to affect the life of America. And,
although the South, unfortunately, has lost much of the
old-time charm that marked the individuality and home-
life of its people, there is still noticeable within its bor-
ders an adherence to many of the manners and customs
chat once identified it as a territory set apart. Gradually
the modern means of communication and transportation,
the industrial growth and the greater intermingling of
the peoples of the South with the people of other sections
of America, are removing the old identifying marks.
And when they have disappeared entirely, there will be
gone a beauty and a spiritual richness which the nation
will miss, and as time goes on will probably never be able
to recover. The dead rose leaves of the old South still
hold a hint of its bygone fragrance, but the time is not
far off, perhaps, when these rose leaves will turn to dust.re Se a a

}
~ =)

 

   
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
  
   
    

GHAPTER X

EDUCATION

In the year 1910 there died in the town of Charlottes-
ville, Virginia, at the age of 90 an old gentleman who had
been graduated at the University of Virginia, a fine Greek
and Latin classical scholar and a man who could quote
passages from Shakespeare as readily as some men can
pass the time of day. But it was a characteristic of this
gentleman for half of his lifetime to use bad English;
and he appeared to take pride in the fact. The double
He prob-

ably was an extreme case, but there have been in the South

negative was one of his pet accomplishments.

until recent times many educated gentlemen who were
more or less like the Charlottesville man.

There always has been in the South a carelessness of
speech which has characterized the section. The contrac-
tion “ain’t,” for example, is used by the best educated
people; and in North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and
Kentucky the most cultured men and women use the word
“come” for came. It is noteworthy that the more cul-
tured people in the South pronounce the well-known word
“tomato” with the broad “a.” Many persons who use the
broad “a” in tomato, however, use it in no other word; and
in Virginia and South Carolina only do the cultured people
resort to the broad “a” in most of their words. The broad

“a” in “tomato” is ridiculed by members of the middle

136EDUCATION 137

and lower classes who often suggest that “potato” be pro-
nounced the same way. The users of the broad “a” in
“tomato,” however, may find comfort in the fact that of
the seven leading English dictionaries in the world, five of
them give “tomato” with the broad “a” as the preferred
pronunciation.

In Virginia and South Carolina where the cultured
people use the broad “a” in most of their words, their

probably is no affectation more grating than that which
embraces the use of the broad “a” by persons who strain
themselves to do so.

Some years ago Julian Street made a tour of the more
important Southern cities, and in Richmond was enter-
tained by an aristocratic lady of the old school. In a
magazine article which appeared a few weeks later he
declared complacently that he had heard what he had
for years wanted to confirm, namely, the use by a South-
erner of the expression, “You all,” applied to one person.
This particular lady who represented the élite of Southern
manners and customs, he averred, had used the expres-
sion in addressing him! But Mr. Street must have been
nodding. Certainly he must have misunderstood the
lady, for “You all” is never resorted to by Southerners
in addressing one person. The phrase, which connotes
the second person plural of the personal pronoun VOM sis
and which repeatedly is used by Shakespeare, applies to
more than one person. The Louisville Courier-Journal,
discussing the matter editorially in 1922, declared, ““That
‘you all? is employed by Americans of the Southern Statesomnes ery

ON Se A ee OS OS Se ee

mi
~ =

 

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
  

138 THE CHANGING SOUTH

in addressing a single person is too absurd to deserve
refutation.” And the Nashville Banner, treating of the
same subject in an editorial in 1921, said: “Joel Chandler
Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, and other Southern writers
proficient in the use of Southern dialect have said that
they never heard or knew the use of ‘you all’ in the
singular number. It is an allusion, or manner of speech,
that Northern listeners don’t wholly take in that makes
them believe otherwise. ‘You all’ is the Southern plural
for you. Those of the mountains say ‘yow’uns,? that is,
you ones, for the same purpose.” So Mr. Street’s ears
tricked him, and probably if his hostess read his magazine
article, nobody was more surprised than she to glimpse
his statement concerning her use of “you all.”

In Virginia, and particularly in the Eastern part of
the State, members of the old aristocratic families still
use the terms “cyar” and “cyarpet,” for “car” and “car-
pet” and similar words. The word “girl” is pronounced
“gel” as in gelding. These expressions were handed
down from those emigrants who came over from Eng-
land, and particularly those who migrated from York-
shire. The use of such terms in Virginia to-day, however,
is confined more or less to the old generation of the best
families. In Eastern Virginia, and in parts of South
Carolina the words “how” and “crowd” are pronounced
as if the “o” in them were a “wu” as in “crude.” And in
the Carolinas and Alabama the terms “word” and “bird”
are pronounced much after the fashion of the East Side
New Yorker—“woid” and “boid.”

The Southern Negro dialect is probably the outgrowthEDUCATION 139

of the Negro’s ignorance of letters mixed with a certain
ear for music. Vocal sound to an illiterate Negro 1s
simply a form of music, and music, in so far as words are
concerned for the Negro, is a kind of poetry. Thus we
hear the Southern Negro using the articles “dis” and
“dat” for “this” and “that,” and the word “gwine” for
“soing.” The educated Southern white of to-day prob-
ably owes his failure to pronounce the final “g” to the
Negroid influence, for the Negroes in the South never
pronounce the final “g.” Their words are cut and
blended in such fashion as to make a language that 1s pe-
culiarly adaptable to music. The Negro’s laugh, loud and
more or less musical, ‘is accompanied by a slap on the knee
which is but an expression of the inherent rhythm in his
soul. Their impulses, of course, are primitive, and if they
were allowed to give the freest vent to their impulses they
would chant their language rather than speak it. It 1S
noteworthy that the Negro articles, such as “dis” and
“dat” are remindful of the Teutonic articles; but the
Negro words are not outgrowths of Teutonic influences.
They come from a mixture of laziness, ignorance and
musical emotion which are a part of the Negroid consti-
tution. Among the so-called “poor whites” in the South
the language of the Negro in most of its shades and
coloring are to be found. I once asked a Tennessee
mountaineer, whose home was on the North Carolina
border, in the Big Smoky mountains, the distance from
one place to another. “Wal,” he said, “Ah rickon yo’
ken git thar agin’ the sun gone sot.” Translated, this
meant that he believed I could, by walking, reach theWie

Ei, ace lakh seh isla Seinen iat imeicaaa =

 

gay te ap

    

140 THE CHANGING SOUTH

point mentioned before sundown. It will be noted, how-
ever, that he used the word “thar” instead of the Negroid
term “dar.” This is a notable distinction between the
“poor whites” and the Negroes in the South.

Education, although bringing about many gratifying
changes in the South, has not improved the language of
the Southerners materially. Even those persons who
have been educated in the institutions of higher learn-
ing, in their social contacts, cling to the Negroid language
influences with a remarkable tenacity. But this is far
from being a handicap, and I for one would be distressed
to see the language formations and customs and manners
which have given the South a distinctive charm, dis-
appear in favor of the precise linguists and the disciples
of the books of etiquette. Etiquette in the South, by the
way, I believe, truly comes from the heart. It is not the
outgrowth of written formule. If a gentleman: in a
street car rises and gives his seat to a lady, he doesn’t
do it because the thing is a part of a formula, but because
his heart dictates to him to pay homage to womanhood.
And if the time comes when the men of the South cease
paying such homage, it will be the fault of the women
and not of the men.

In these days of scientific educational methods, the
South, along with other sections of the country, has made
remarkable strides. I shall not go into dusty statistics,
but it is noteworthy that the Southern States during the
past two decades have cut down their illiteracy percentages
more than any other States in the Union. This probably
is due to the fact that they had more illiteracy to reduce,EDUCATION 141

However that may be, they have kept apace with their
Northern neighbors in the use of modern methods. Asa
result Normal schools, where more efficient teachers are
trained, have sprung up in nearly every State in the South.
County high schools have been established, and domestic
science and manual training are among the courses in at
least one high or intermediate school in each Southern
city.

Compulsory education has had much to do with reduc-
ing illiteracy; but where these laws exist considerable diffi-
culty has been experienced in enforcing them. In the
cotton belt and in some of the industrial centers where
children of school age are used in the fields and factories,
the adults are inclined to wink at the compulsory school
laws.

Education in the South is not a new thing by any means.
As far back as 1810 the State of South Carolina passed
a law providing for the public education of indigent chil-
dren, and Georgia passed a similar law in 1817. Many
Southerners of to-day have probably forgotten the fact,
but from the year 1868 to 1875 the State of Alabama
provided schools in which whites and blacks were edu-
cated together. Such an arrangement was found to be
unsuitable and distasteful to the whites in Alabama, so the
two races were separated. Now they are separated in all
the Southern States. For doing this the Southerners have
been hotly attacked in some quarters in the North, but
such critics forget that in the South are to be found the
country’s leading Negro institutions of learning. No
finer schools for Negroes are to be found in the Unionee

 

   

142 THE CHANGING SOUTH

than the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, a
coeducational institution, at Hampton, Virginia, and
Tuskegee Institute, at Tuskegee, Alabama. These schools
under wise Negro leadership have trained and are train-
ing young Negro men and women for various occupational
pursuits for which they are best fitted, and at the same
time are striving to inculcate in them a right perspective
of their relationships with the whites. One of the chief
aims of Booker T. Washington, who founded Tuskegee
Institute and headed it for many years, was to promote a
better understanding between the whites and blacks. He
met with many difficulties from unsympathetic whites in
the South and from Negroes in the North who enter-
tained the idea that he was too conservative in his atti-
tude toward the whites. That his philosophy was based
upon inherent wisdom, I believe, is proved by an incident
that came to my attention in the city of Philadelphia.
The head of a Negro welfare organization in that city,
in a letter to a leading newspaper there, complained that
Negro graduates of the University of Pennsylvania had
the utmost difficulty in obtaining the kind of work in
Philadelphia or elsewhere in Pennsylvania that their edu-
cation fitted them to do and were compelled to go into
spheres of work that were foreign to their training at the
University. The writer of the letter contrasted the ex-
perience of the Negroes with that of the white graduates,
who, he said, had no difficulty in obtaining work that called
for the training which the University gave them. Appar-
ently the best the Northern Negro college and UniversityEDUCATION 143

graduates can hope for, is to go into the professions and
practice them among their own people.

At Hampton and Tuskegee, the training has a two-
fold objective: to give the young Negro man or woman a
vocation in life and at the same time not encroach upon
the social or economic structures of the whites. At Tuske-
gee cooking schools are operated; farming, trucking, fruit
growing, baking and canning are taught. In all, forty
different industries are taught at Tuskegee; and Southern
people, both whites and blacks, are beginning to see more
clearly every year the wisdom of Booker T. Washington’s
philosophy. Radical Negroes in the North and their white
friends, from time to time, have tried to upset the fine
work of Hampton and Tuskegee; but the large body of
white people in America, whether in the North, South,
West or East know instinctively,—or in time, will come
to know,—that education for the Negro can never mean
that it will be followed by social equality. There is, I
dare say, more feeling, among a larger number of white
people against such aspirations of the Negro in the North
to-day than there is in the South; and the reason is that
the Negroes in the Southern institutions of learning are
trying earnestly to carry out the sane policies of Washing-
ton and of his successor, Major Robert T. Moton, the
present head of Tuskegee.

The grammar and high schools and colleges and uni-
versities in the South are to-day among the best in the
land. Their instructors are better trained than they were
ten or twenty years ago,—although, I fear, they are notoe

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

144. THE CHANGING SOUTH

as well paid as in the North,—they use modern methods,
have the latest kinds of equipment and facilities and are
housed in up-to-date buildings. But there is a wide
difference between the grammar and high schools on the
one hand and the colleges and universities on the other, in
the matter of liberalism. This probably is but natural.
In any event, the text books in history and biology in some
of the Southern States, notably those in Georgia, Texas,
Tennessee and Mississippi, are made to order to suit the
notions of the people in regard to evolution and the Civil
War. In Tennessee and Mississippi legislative enact-
ments prohibit the teaching of evolution in any of the
public schools. In Texas the State Textbook Commission
adopted a resolution prohibiting such teaching and the
same thing was done by the Atlanta Board of Education.
In so far as the Civil War histories are concerned, all the
Southern States have textbooks, according to blue print.
It is a well known fact that textbook publishers publish
two different textbooks concerning Civil War histories—
one for the North and the other for the South. This is
an old issue, and one upon which the Southerners will go
to war as quickly as they did when the Stars and Bars
first were unfurled more than sixty years ago. The re-
sult is that men like Lee, Jackson, Stuart, Jefferson Davis,
Beauregard, Johnston, Forrest and others are glorified
more than the Revolutionary heroes, including Washing-
ton and Jefferson. There is pride in the fact that Wash-
ington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and others of their
day were Southerners, but unfortunately they did not
live long enough to join Lee in his march into Pennsy]l-EDUCATION

vania or Jackson in his famous valley campaign. They
are glorified with reservation, while the Civil War heroes
are canonized.

In many of the grammar and high schools in the South
compulsory reading of the Bible is ordered; but the same
thing is true of several Northern States—Maryland and
Delaware, for example. Probably one of the strangest
things that has happened in the South in recent years,
however, was the opposition of the Virginia Baptist Asso-
ciation to a bill proposed in the Virginia Legislature some
years ago for compulsory reading of the Bible. The plan
was supported by the Ku Klux Klan of Virginia and the
Methodist groups; but the Baptists in the State led in the
fight against it; and the Rev. R. H. Pitt, editor of the
Virginia Religious Herald, a Baptist publication, drafted
a resolution, which was adopted, declaring, “We want
every one to read the Bible, but we want it done volun-
tarily. We stand for the right of every one to read and
interpret the Bible according to the dictates of his heart.
Enforced conformity is an unholy alliance of State and
Church. We are guardians of Christianity and we must
preserve the voluntary principle of Christianity or there
will be chaos.”

To the credit of the Virginia Baptists, it also must be
stated that they vigorously opposed and helped to defeat
legislation designed to prohibit the teaching of evolu-
tion in the public schools of the Old Dominion. Out-
side of Louisville, Kentucky, which is an important Bap-
tist center, there probably is no more liberal group of
that denomination in America than the Virginia Baptists.=

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146 THE CHANGING SOUTH

It is unfortunate, however, that the Virginians are tied
neck and leg to the prohibition law, and that their brethren
in other parts of the South are so far behind them in their
liberalism.

The centers of real intellectual liberalism are to be
found in the colleges and universities of the South, and
this is true in spite of the fact that a large majority of
these institutions, which are not State supported, are sup-
ported and sponsored by the Protestants, chiefly by the
Baptists and Methodists. North Carolina was one of the
pioneers in university education. Her university at
Chapel Hill is one of the oldest State universities in the
South, or in the country for that matter; and to-day she
stands out as one of the most liberal institutions in the
South as well as one of the best from an educational stand-
point. It was deeply disappointing to the admirers of this
institution some years ago, however, when after making
a systematic survey of the textile industry in North Caro-
lina, with a view to recommending improvements in the
conditions of the workers, the surveyors threw up the
white flag in the face of a protest from the textile manu-
facturing interests. Save for this and other minor ges-
tures of the kind, North Carolina is second to none in her
jealous promotion of liberalism and modern education.

Other centers of liberalism are the University of Vir-
ginia; Vanderbilt University, at Nashville; Tulane, at
New Orleans; and the University of Alabama, at Tus-
caloosa. These institutions give the most modern train-
ing in the leading professions. I dare say there are no
better law schools in the country than at the UniversityEDUCATION 147

of Virginia, Washington and Lee University, at Lexing-
ton, Va., and at Vanderbilt and North Carolina. The
University of Virginia also has a fine medical school.
In the South the members of the faculty, as well as the
school officials, from the President down, are closer to
their students than in the Universities of the North.

Some of the country’s finest preparatory schools are to
be found in the South, and the same is true of her mili-
tary schools. Notable among the latter is the Virginia
Military Institute, at Lexington, Virginia, which has been
called by Army officers, “the West Point of the South.”
Other fine military schools are the Virginia Polytechnic
Institute at Blacksburg, the Georgia Tech at Atlanta, and
the South Carolina Military Academy, better known as
“Citadel2? These four schools, during the World War,
furnished some of the most efficient officers in the Amer-
ican army. An incongruous procedure, however, was the
institution, at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute a few
years ago, of coeducation. This, I believe, has placed that
school at a disadvantage as compared with other schools
of the kind in the South. Young women, of course, do
not have to take part in the military discipline, but receive
training in all other departments. The result is, unfor-
tunately, that the morale at the school is not as high as it
used to be. Coeducation in the universities, highly dis-
tasteful to students and alumni at first, has proved to be
more or less a success.

The denominational colleges in the South have had
much the same experience that William and Mary Col-
lege had. When William and Mary was founded intate :

oS SS eerie elma sath ti =item

 

     
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
   

148 THE CHANGING SOUTH

1693 it was designed primarily to train young men for the
ministry in the Episcopal church, or Church of England,
as it was then. William and Mary now, however, is not
unlike other colleges, is supported by the State and offers
all the branches of academic training. In the leading
denominational colleges, for young men and women, alike,
there is to-day little of the denominational influence.
There is a tendency, of course, to place in charge of these
schools a Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or Episcopal
educator, as the case may be; but the students are in most
cases as free in their conduct and their thinking as if they
were in a non-sectarian school in the North. In some of
them chapel attendance is compulsory; but in most of
them it is not. Some of the graduates, of course, go into
the Protestant ministry or into church work, and many
of them maintain their denominational adherence after
graduation; but on the whole their lives, after graduation,
show no more denominational influence than do the gradu-
ates of non-sectarian schools.

Teachers in the graded and high schools are probably
not as well equipped as those in the North, although this
is changing for the better as the result of the work of
normal schools and the raising of requirements in many
of the States. Salaries are woefully inadequate. But in
the higher institutions of learning, and particularly in the
State universities, the instructors are on a par with any of
those in the North, and the best of them are well paid.
The universities of the South, too, are fortunate in their
executives. The college presidents, as a rule, are liberal-
minded, progressive and enterprising. Dr. Edwin H.EDUCATION 149

Alderman, of the University of Virginia; Dr. Harry W.
Chase, of the University of North Carolina; and Dr.
George H. Denny, of the University of Alabama, are
representative of this class of educators.

Some of the finest schools for young women in Amer-
ica are to be found in the South. Among the leading
ones might be named Hollins College at Hollins, Vir-
ginia; Peabody, at Nashville; Stuart Hall and Mary
Baldwin, at Staunton, Virginia; Randolph-Macon College,
at Lynchburg, Virginia; and Agnes Scott College at At-
lanta, Georgia. The traditions and manners and customs
which have made the women of the South famous for
their charm and attractiveness are still maintained, in
large measure, at these schools, but, of course, they have
not permitted bygone ideas to prevent them from adopt-
ing many of the modern educational methods.

In most of the Southern States the social and religious
status of the public school teachers is surrounded by but
few restrictions; but it is noteworthy that in the State
of North Carolina, some injustices have been practiced.
Some years ago two or three teachers were dismissed when
‘t was discovered that they were members of the Roman
Catholic church. In a certain North Carolina village a
young woman, upon becoming a teacher in the public
schools, contracted to “take a vital interest in all phases of
Sunday school work . . . to abstain from all dancing,
immodest dressing, and any other conduct unbecoming
a teacher and a lady . . . not to go out with any young
men,” unless it was in connection with Sunday-school
work. She also promised not to fall in love, becomea =

rae

Sie ee Se ye

 

~~

     
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

150 THE CHANGING SOUTH

engaged or secretly to marry. And above all she was to
donate all her “time, service and money without stint for
the uplift and benefit of the community.”

This is a strange contract in a State that boasts of having
declared its independence from Great Britain in the fa-
mous Mecklenburg Declaration a year or more before Jet-
ferson wrote his well-known document.

There was a time when the native college professors
and public school teachers said, “He don’t,” but to-day
they are more precise, although a superintendent of
schools in Chicago in a public statement a few years ago
announced that it would be perfectly proper for his teach-
ers to teach their pupils to say, “It is me.” And why
should they be so precise when the radio announcers whose
voices are heard in all parts of the South use the bastard
word, “broadcasted”?

There is a tendency in the military schools and in some
of the preparatory schools to do away with Greek letter
fraternities; but in the majority of colleges and univer-
sities their poker homes and drinking palaces are still re-
tained. It is safe to say that no more potent influence
calculated to send the young students of the South along
the road to hellfire.—provided the good brethren are
correct in their geographical conclusions,—than the Greek
letter fraternities in the Southern institutions of learning
to-day. I understand that the height of heroism in some
of these organizations is the ability to remain above the
table longer than any other brother on the campus. And,
I might add that the Greek letter fraternity usually em-
braces all the Southern college student learns about Greek.EDUCATION 151

The South, like many other parts of the country, suf-
fers, in so far as its professions are concerned, from the
too frequent tendency of young men who are better fitted
for the plow or the grocery store to go into the law, of
young men who are better fitted to be butchers’ assistants
to go into medicine and surgery, and of young men who
are far better equipped for side-show whooping and auc-
tioneering to go into the ministry. But, society, sooner or
later, adjusts them to her needs, and after practicing their
respective professions for a while, many of them turn to
trades better suited to them. There is no town of 60,000
to 75,000 inhabitants that is not overrun with attorneys-
at-law. Some of them hang up their shingles, join all the
golf and drinking clubs, examine two or three property
titles, pray for their first horse case, and then get a job
as a clerk with a railroad company or go into the insurance
business, because the outlook doesn’t seem as good as it
did in Daniel Webster’s or John Marshall’s day. In re-
cent years, however, educators have complained that these
tendencies are not confined to the South; and that even
the molds at Harvard and Yale and Princeton turn out
would-be lawyers, doctors and engineers who would have
been better off if they had followed their fathers’ foot-
steps into more lowly occupations.

Among the wealthier citizens of the South,—the num-
ber is increasing every year,—there has been a growing
practice of sending young men and young women to
Northern institutions of higher learning; but usually
these students, after graduation, remain in the North.
Those who return to the South to make their homes, some-iE

,

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——

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152 TITHE CHANGING SOUTH

times exert a wholesome influence on their fellow citi-
zens when they go into business or into professions by
carrying to the South not only the latest ideas and meth-
ods, but a new spirit of tolerance concerning Northern
ideas and methods.

Improved methods of education in the minor schools
and colleges and universities unquestionably are having
beneficial results. Each year brings a broader outlook.
Each year lifts a larger number of children and youths
to higher planes of usefulness. There is, of course, a
prevailing practice to standardize, as most of the schools
in the North are doing. But why not? The general run
of folk are better off standardized; and those who possess
genius, ability and enterprise above the average, always
are able to lift themselves above standardization. It
would be a sorry world, anyway, if all our young men
and women were geniuses. Such a thing would make civi-
lization rather dizzy. I confess that it very often is futile
and unnecessary to undertake to educate certain types of
young folk. But that is something for the learned edu-
cators to fight out. Suffice it to say that education in the
South is in most of its phases on a par with the education
in the North and East. Indeed, there is developing a
kind of nationalism among the educators of the country,
including the Southerners, which in time ought to erase,
or partly erase, sectional lines in so far as methods are
concerned. Local control of histories and biologies in the
South probably will continue until Gabriel comes with
his trumpet and commands the blue and the gray to fol-
low him into the Sweet Ultimate; but one needs noEDUCATION 15

imagination to visualize a South of the not distant future,

educating its young people in most of its institutions in a

way that will more and more make the Southern States
an integral part of America, and not a land marked by
the metes and bounds of sectional prejudice.~— —
cite

1, saa lle ice innit balan eigtemmocameae

 

CHAPTER XI

THE PRESS

One of the potent factors in the enlightenment and
education of the Southern people in the South to-day 1s
the daily press. Every important city has one or more
daily newspapers, and practically every important town
is the headquarters for a weekly. The weekly news-
papers, of course, do not attempt to supply news of any
value other than the personal items—weddings, births,
deaths, property transfers and the latest crime.

The daily newspaper in the city, however, is exerting
an influence on the people, that critics in the North seem
not to have perceived, and I believe as time goes on the
press will be one of the leading forces in destroying the
lines of sectionalism and bringing the South out of its
religious and political intolerances. Such an accomplish-
ment is retarded at the outset by the fact that all the im-
portant dailies are Democratic in politics; but there has
been a tendency in recent years on the part of some of
them to become genuinely independent politically, and
when they have learned that it not only is futile, but un-
principled to adhere to one political faith, whether or
no, a new day will have dawned in the South.

The greatest news source for the Southern newspapers
is the Associated Press, a reliable, non-partisan news gath-
ering agency. The Associated Press supplies its members
154THE PRESS 155

with the current news from every corner of the globe; and
in the South State-wide bureaus have been established
which supply the dailies with the more important hap-
penings in the States. The headquarters for these bureaus
usually are at the State capitals. Inasmuch as the Asso-
ciated Press is free of political bias and unprejudiced in
its news selections, it provides Southern readers with a
true history of the whole world as it is happening. And
newspaper readers are to be found in the cities and their
suburbs and on every rural route in the South. The re-
sult is that the Southern people, who in recent years have
become avidious newspaper readers, are obtaining a
broader outlook on local, State, National and interna-
tional affairs. They probably are not conscious of this,
but it is true.

In addition to the Associated Press, other news agen-
cies, such as the United Press, for afternoon papers; the
International News Service, and the Consolidated Press
Association, supply news for the Southern dailies. Added
to these are picture services, syndicated features of every
description, and the comics and rotogravures. In the
majority of the dailies the news is displayed and headed
fearlessly. Twenty years ago, it would have been ex-
pected that a newspaper would keep from its news col-
umn news that might be considered injurious to its political
causes, or policies; but that isn’t done now. Iam inclined
to believe that the one-man ownership which usually is
the case of the Southern newspaper, is largely responsible
for this.

There is a notion in the North that Southern news-—— )

2 AC elt iinet 2 tee et apa

156 THE CHANGING SOUTH

papers are weak editorially. But this is a mistake. Inno
section of the country to-day is there a larger number of
fearless editorial pages, directed by able and fearless
writers. And I believe that it is the work of these men
that will in time impress upon the people of the South
the necessity of getting away from its political bondage,
ia if it ever hopes to prosper politically. The same thing
applies to religious intolerance. The editorial pages of
the South are open to the free discussion of public mat-
ters. It is noteworthy that the wettest newspapers open
their columns to dry critics and the driest dailies print the
letters of their wettest readers. This same kind of liber-
alism applies to all the shades of opinion on public ques-
tions, and it is having a favorable effect.

I have stated in a previous chapter that the colleges and
universities in the South are the centers of liberalism. I
wish to amend this. There is no group of men living
in the Southern States to-day that is more liberal-minded
and forward-looking than the newspaper men, and par-
ticularly the editors. There are, of course, here and there
editors whose opinions are narrow on the prohibition and
religious issues. There also are editorial writers who con-
f | ceive of the South as a place that must withstand Yankee-
ism and all that it implies. But there, fortunately, are
| not many such editors. Among the younger editorial

writers in the South are to be found some of the staunch-
est champions of tolerance and liberalism.

A glowing example of forward-looking liberalism is the
Columbus, Georgia, Enquirer-Sun, edited by Julian Har-
ris, son of Joel Chandler Harris. In his newspaper heTHE PRESS 157

has fought with the utmost vigor the Ku Klux Klan, the
prohibition laws and religious intolerance; and to under-
stand what this means, one must remember that Georgia
is the Klan’s spawning place; that it is the hotbed of
Protestantism; and that it is one of the driest states in
the South politically. But the Columbus paper has not
been alone in its valiant service. Among its compatriots
are to be named the Birmingham, Alabama, News, whose
editorials are written by the able pen of Alfred Battle
Bealle, and the Columbia, South Carolina, Record, edited
by R. Charlton Wright, one of the South’s most fearless
editors. In a State where white men think no more of
staging a lynching party than Sunday schools do of hold-
ing a picnic, Mr. Wright for years has been making war
in his editorial columns on lynching, prohibition and re-
ligious intolerance. In Tennessee where a Governor and
his Legislature forced through a ridiculous anti-evolution
law, out of which the famous Scopes trial grew, the Nash-
ville Banner unhesitatingly has attacked the Governor at
every turn. And this is done in a territory that is thick
with fundamentalists. In Memphis, the Commercial-
Appeal has fought the Klan for years, and through a cam-
paign of ridicule and exposure has well-nigh driven the
order out of Western Tennessee.

The New Orleans Item-Tribune and Times-Picayune
for many years have been waging a fight against religious
intolerance. Their task, however, is not as difficult as
that of other Southern dailies because they circulate in
a large Roman Catholic territory. In North Carolina, the
Greensboro News, the Raleigh Times and the Charlotte158 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Observer have fought and are still fighting for liberal
issues. The Raleigh News and Observer, owned by
Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy in Mr. Wilson’s
cabinet, suffers from the echo of Bryanism in so far as
prohibition and Democracy are concerned; but to Mr.
Daniels’s credit, it must be said his columns are open to
his opponents and he fights his battles fairly.

One of the strongest newspapers in the South is the
Norfolk, Virginia, Virginian-Pilot, edited by Louis I.
Jaffe. It possesses a balance and sanity, a vision and
sound philosophy on most public questions that few news-
papers in the North possess. It probably is the only news-
paper in Virginia that is heeded by the politicians. An-
other ably edited daily is the Richmond, Virginia, News-
Leader, owned by John Stewart Bryan and edited by Dr.
Douglas Freeman. Dr. Freeman is a talented editorial
writer, although he often lacks initiative and temerity.
The Lynchburg News (morning) and the Lynchburg
Advance (afternoon), owned by Senator Carter Glass, are
handicapped because they merely reflect Mr. Glass’s views
on public questions. The readers recognize this, and un-
less they happen to agree with the Senator’s politics they
are not a great deal impressed by the editorial utterances
in the two newspapers. It must be said, however, that
Robert Glass, the Senator’s nephew, editor of the News, is
one of the State’s most talented writers. He possesses
vigor and wit and a keen perception of the political truths
of the day. It isa great pity that he hasn’t an absolutely
free hand in his work.

The Little Rock, Arkansas, Arkansas Gazette, is theTHE PRESS 159

oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi River. Its
editorials on the whole are liberal. In the latter part of
May, 1927, it commended President Coolidge’s work in
connection with the Mississippi flood, at a time when
other Southern newspapers were condemning the Execu-
tive. It is fearless and presents its news impartially, and
I believe exerts a good influence through Arkansas, a State
which next to Mississippi probably is one of the most
backward commonwealths in the South.

The Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger, was estab-
lished in 1837, and is widely read in the State, although
the Memphis newspapers have a large circulation in
Northern Mississippi. Probably the strongest daily in
Mississippi is the Meridian Star. This paper has the
largest circulation in the State, and the Jackson News runs
ita close second. These three papers, generally speaking,
are liberal, although they show a slight tinge of religious
bias on the side of Protestantism.

The Florida newspapers, notably those in Jacksonville,
Miami and Tampa are feeling the effects of Northern in-
fluence, although they remain Democratic politically.
Their Northern outlook is, of course, prompted by the
invasion of thousands of Northerners into Florida. One
of the strongest sheets in the State is the Miami News,
owned by James M. Cox, one-time Democratic candidate
for the Presidency and a resident of Ohio. While the
News reflects Mr. Cox’s political views too sharply, it is
nevertheless a vigorous champion of progress and right-
living in local affairs.

A noticeable thing about the Southern newspapers is theSe

2 ee ee oe ee es

 

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160 THE CHANGING SOUTH

large amount of space the majority of them give to so-
called society news. In a ten-page week-day edition of
the Raleigh News and Observer, for example, three-
quarters of a page is devoted to society events. Some of
the items, it is true, concern social activities in other North
Carolina communities. The society columns probably are
more democratic in their treatment of local residents than
the Northern papers, particularly the metropolitan dai-
lies. There probably is no more vigorous mingling of the
Judy O’Gradys with the Colonels’ ladies in the country
than in the society columns in the South to-day. This
is due in large measure to the fact that the newspaper pub-
lishers ten or twenty years ago adopted the policy of never
offending the advertisers. If the wives of some of the
advertisers happened to be Mrs. O’Gradys, they appeared
in the society columns!

Advertisers in the South, however, no longer rule the
policies of the dailies. I dare say that within the past
fifteen or twenty years there has not been a city in the
South whose newspaper has not at one time or an-
other met the challenge of a protesting advertiser by tell-
ing him in effect that he would prefer to see him in hell
rather than run his advertisement, if—

Considerable space is given by the dailies to sports;
and the Saturday editions of all the progressive Southern
newspapers give from one to two pages of so-called
church news. This news, concerning the pulpit texts and
musical programs of the churches of all denominations,
save the Catholics, is published gratis. There has been
a movement, initiated by Northern publishers, to makeTHE PRESS 161

the churches pay for the space as advertising, but noth-
ing has come of the idea.

None of the important daily newspapers in the South 1s
an advocate of the prohibition laws, and those that are
dry are lukewarm. A notable exponent of this is the
Louisville Courier-Journal, and its afternoon running
mate, the Louisville Times. The latter paper, edited by
Tom Wallace, scion of an old Kentucky family, is one
of the strongest dailies in the South to-day; and I have
a secret notion that when its columns contain references,
more or less in favor of the dry law, they are half-
hearted gestures of a man who really is not a strong be-
liever in the prohibition laws. Mr. Wallace also is one
of the wittiest paragraphers in the country; and a close
second to him was the late Col. George M. Bailey, para-
grapher for the Houston, Texas, Post-Dispatch, whose
observations on prohibition and Democracy were among
the leading truthful and adroit sayings in Southern news-
paperdom. The Birmingham A ge-Herald, before it was
merged with the Birmingham News, was an ardent dry
advocate; and from a standpoint of rivalry and competi-
tion it isa pity that the News absorbed it. I dare say there
were many wet tears when this dry sheet was taken into
the moist atmosphere of the News in the Spring of 1927.

All the Southern newspapers, without any exception,
that have come to my notice, are strongly Wilsonian in
their Democracy, and for that reason are in turn strong
advocates of America’s entry into the League of Na-
tions. But there is a division among them on such mat-
ters as Bryanism. The influence of Mr. Bryan’s politicala 3a sayy Piteanren aoe Se AY a
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162 THE CHANGING SOUTH

philosophy is still seen guiding the editorial pens of such
important newspapers as the Raleigh News and Observer
and the Atlanta Journal and of many of the weeklies.
Against the Journal in Atlanta is the Constitution, much
weaker than in the days of Henry Grady, but fighting
as best it can, the prohibition farce, the Ku Klux Klan and
religious intolerance. To its credit, it also must be said
that the Constitution in 1926 vigorously condemned a
plan proposed by a group of Atlantans to bar Negroes
from the barber trade. Such a course would have thrown
out of business a firm of barbers headed by one of the
most respectable Negroes in the South. The Constitution
traditionally has sponsored the issues of the right wing of
the Democratic party, and were it in more talented hands
editorially, it would be one of the foremost newspapers in
the South.

Among the cleverest newspapers in the South, from a
paragraphic standpoint, I believe, are the Virginian-Pilot
of Norfolk, the Louisville Times, the Birmingham News,
the Arkansas Gazette, the Columbia State, the Houston
Post-Dispatch, the Dallas News, the Nashville Banner,
the El Paso Times, the Florence, Alabama, Herald, and
the Lynchburg, Virginia, News. The Norfolk daily early
in 1927 voiced succinctly the general attitude of these
sheets toward the prohibition law when it observed, that
“About the only hard thing to secure under the prohibi-
tion law is a conviction.” It is noteworthy that often in
the little quips that these paragraphers create are to be
found the sincere and intimate views of the newspapers
on public questions. A poetic license is exercised in theTHE PRESS 163

writing of paragraphs; and if one desires to “feel the
pulse” of Southern newspaperdom, the best way to do it
is to consult the paragraphs of the Southern dailies. They
contain truthful observations that the responsible editor
would not dare voice in the serious portions of his edi-
torial columns.

In addition to the space given to society news, some
of the papers allot considerable space to items concern-
ing the activities of clubs and fraternal orders. These
are in addition to the weekly reviews of service club
luncheons. And a few of the papers set aside special
portions of their columns to news concerning the | Jegroes.
These articles are, of course, designed to promote circu-
lation. But they do more than that. They stimulate in-
terest among a class of people who are ordinarily not
newspaper readers, or readers of any kind for that mat-
ter. The result is that in a given radius of circulation,
the circulation of the average newspaper may easily be
multiplied by five for the number of people actually
reached. And it is noteworthy that the more important
city papers have subscribers who live on rural routes fifty
and sometimes one hundred miles distant.

With the newspapers reaching most of their subscribers
on the day they are published, and bringing to them the
local, state, national and international events of the
twelve hours previous, an education on current events iS
provided for the people that cannot be matched by col-
leges and universities. Interest in newspapers in the
South was tremendously stimulated during the World
War, before and after America joined the conflict. DailiesUT Ee dEaED!

eS ON re kt ee Se Sey Ree,

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

164 THE CHANGING SOUTH

which before that time were conservative in their display
of news blazoned forth with headlines that would have
been the envy of the most progressive metropolitan sheets.
And they were devoured by the Southerners who, like
people throughout the country, had relatives and friends
in every branch of service in the conflict. This was true
of the blacks as well as the whites.

Since the war, while the dailies have been more con-
servative in their treatment of news, they have resorted
to the old-time methods of heading unusual events, so
the interest stimulated during the war has not only been
maintained, but has in the very nature of things brought
about a gradual increase in circulation among Southern
newspapers. And when the quality of news is considered,
—such as the world-wide service of the Associated Press,
and such foreign services as the New York World and
New, York Times syndicates,—together with well-bal-
anced interpretations of the events in the editorial col-
umns, one is justified in believing that the newspaper of
the South is one of the chief factors in teaching that sec-
tion of the country that many of its political, social and
religious notions, which it has held for so many years, do
not belong in an up-to-date civilization.

Other factors that enter into the molding of Southern
opinion on current events are such Northern dailies as the
New York Times and New York World and the better
class of weekly and monthly magazines. The Saturday
Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal probably have
the largest circulations in their class; but the number of
readers of the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Scribner's andTHE PRESS 165

Century are increasing,—not to mention the much-hated
American Mercury, edited by Henry L. Mencken. It
should be remembered that the standard magazines are
not what they were twenty years ago. Their development
has been just as rapid and remarkable during the past two
decades as the evolution of the skirts worn by the young
women of the South. Intellectually such magazines as
the Atlantic and Harper’s, at one time dragged the floor.
Now they indulge in short-skirted philosophies and jazz-
like attitudes. All this, of course, is having its influence
on the minds of Southerners and particularly on the
younger generations. I dare say the American Mercury
is more widely read in the colleges and universities and
among the newspaper men than elsewhere, although I
have a sneaking notion that it is devoured by some of the
pastors who are as curious as other mortals to know what
the intellectual acrobat of Baltimore is going to say next.
It is noteworthy, too, that half a dozen or more South-
ern newspapers print weekly articles syndicated by Mr.
Mencken. To understand what this means one must re-
member that Mr. Mencken’s geographical notion of the
South is that it is an island full of “yokels” surrounded
by a waste of “bilge.”

An interesting practice which many of the Southern
newspapers have is the printing of a daily digest of edi-
torial views from newspapers throughout the country.
All shades and colors of opinions concerning controver-
sial topics are given, something that was not done twenty
years ago. And when such a practice is reénforced by the
appearance of the Literary Digest in the homes of thou-iene

ON re A SO ne ne

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166 THE CHANGING SOUTH

sands of Southerners, one is reminded again that the
Southern people are not the isolated morons that Northern
critics picture them as being. Reviews and criticisms of
the latest books of fiction and non-fiction, written by local
talent, appear in many of the Southern sheets. Among
the leading reviewers, in my opinion, are Hunter Stagg
of the Richmond, Virginia, Times-Dispatch, and Henry
Bellamann of the Columbia, South Carolina, Record.
Both of these men are as able as any of the better-known
reviewers on metropolitan dailies and literary weeklies.
Mr. Bellamann is a poet of no mean talent. At this point
I cannot refrain from expressing the belief that in the
cities of the South and in the smaller communities there 1s
more culture per thousand inhabitants than in the metro-
politan centers. The educated folk keep up with the lat-
est books and plays; they form various kinds of literary
clubs; holding readings and lectures, and in a general way
are better informed about the arts and sciences than the
same kind of people in the big cities. In a town of 65,000
persons in Virginia, a Shakespeare club organized more
than thirty years ago is still in existence, although I have
been told that its members have not read one of Shake-
speare’s plays for more than ten years. Ibsen, and prob-
ably Eugene O’Neill, are on their programs. These cul-
tural undertakings, as I have suggested, are stimulated
and often promoted by the newspapers, although one of
the rules of the Virginia Shakespeare Club is that it is
never to have any publicity about its programs or mem-
bership; and it is to-day considered one of the exclusive
organizations in the community.THE PRESS

167

One of the most interesting changes in newspaperdom
in the South since the Civil War has been in the type of

editorial writers.

The editor of the old school, who wrote

his copy with a pencil and whose mind would not flower
properly unless he was filled with liquor, has passed from
the scene. An outstanding figure of this kind whom I
have in mind was still alive early in 1927, although not
working at an editorial desk. He was of the Watterson
and Grady school, a fearless writer, a ready fighter and

an all-nighter in the matter of drinking.

He was as in-

dependent as Mussolini and as pugnacious as an Irish
patriot, and he loved nothing better than to engage in an

editorial duel with a fellow editor.

He was a staunch

Democrat, but a bitter foe of Bryan and all his followers.
He was a religionist, but a strong foe of prohibition and

anti-evolution idiocies.

And I might as well say it: he

was a Virginian who used the broad “a” and resorted to
“cyar” and “cyarpet,” but was willing to drink with the

lowliest fellow citizen.

He was 2 man whose heart was

as big as his brain, and whose feet were as big as both.
He was rawboned, rough, sentimental, ugly, cruel and
When he was editor, he also was king;
and when the king spoke through the columns of his paper
he infuriated the Puritans, provoked a chuckle among ne
heathens; and all confessed that he was a “great writer.’

tender all in one.

Such a man, unfortunately, was the last of the Mo-
hicans. In the very nature of things, he could not re-
Economic as well as social conditions
forced him out of his editorial chair more than a decade
ago, and when last heard from he was writing political

main in power.Wiha

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On ni i ep pt es

168 THE CHANGING SOUTH

essays for the letter column of a Richmond newspaper,
revealing that the old fire still burned within him. When
he receives the summons I imagine the shades of Greeley,
Dana, Bowles, Watterson and Grady will greet him in
Hades and give him three rousing cheers, for he was one
of ’em.

In one editorial chair in the South a new type of
editor is to be found to-day. I have in mind the editor
of one of the largest afternoon newspapers in point of
circulation. He is a university graduate, a possessor of
the Ph.D. degree, a thorough Greek scholar, a fine orator
and a man of wide reading. He is a talented writer and
a man who probably entertains clear-cut opinions. But
he has an eye for business even more than he has for the
well-turned phrase. The result is that his caution vitiates
his power as an editor. I do not mean by this that he is
beholden altogether to his large advertisers, although he
gives them generous consideration, which is natural. But
he does something that the old editor never dreamed of
doing. He weighs every word he writes in terms of
what it will mean to his future and to his paper’s future,
rather than in terms of what is right or for the public
good. He probably argues that business is business, and
that those fellows who want to fight battles can do so, but
he knows which side of his bread the butter is on. I fear
that in his approach to public questions he leans a bit on
the side of expediency rather than principle; but, of
course, he is never happier than when principle happens
to fit in with his plans.

Such an editor, it might be remembered, is not a newTHE PRESS 169

figure to those persons who have had anything to do with
business and professional men generally. And it will be
argued that inasmuch as even an editor must have his
bacon, just like the banker, the merchant or the lawyer,
he must mix his courage with wisdom. However that
may be, I believe I have described this editor accurately.
It must be admitted that he is an extreme type. He rep-
resents the writer who has a financial interest in the paper
which he edits. Fortunately, he is not a prevailing type;
but he is representative of a growing tendency in modern
journalism in the South. Most of the editors in the
South,—the majority of them are not owners or part own-
ers,—are given a wide latitude in their work, and this
is particularly true of those whose publishers are finan-

 

cially independent.

In the measure that the Southern newspapers are re-
ceiving news from all parts of the world, they are,
through their Associated Press bureaus and correspondents
in the South, broadcasting throughout the United States
the more important events that are shaping in the South.
The dispatches concerning these events are supplemented
with pictures and feature articles, Southern newspaper
men are furnishing material to the magazines about the
South, and many of the dailies exchange with the sheets in
other sections of the country. The result is that as the
South grows and prospers her resources and her changing
manners and customs are coming sharply to the attention
of the rest of the country. Her dailies, for many years
to come, will fight the battles of Democracy, as long as
any white man carries the party banner. For a long timeere ee ee oe Se

—

ae

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170 THE CHANGING SOUTH

they will keep alive the traditions of the Lost Cause.
And no man can say how long they will continue to main-
tain what they conceive to be “white supremacy.” But in
all other things the South is learning from her news-
papers that the world is a large affair after all, and that
the States which make up the Solid South are but a very
small part of it, although an important part of it, to be

sure.CHAPTER XII
GREAT AND NEAR-GREAT

There is a persistent myth in the South that the section
is the home of the nation’s greatest men, and Southerners,
particularly Virginians, point with pride to the fact that
twelve of the thirty Presidents of the United States have
been natives. The Old Dominion lays claim to eight sons
who reached the White House, but three of them,—Wil-
liam Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor and Woodrow
Wilson,—were not residents when they were elected. In
addition to the Virginians were Andrew Jackson, born in
North Carolina; James K. Polk, born in North Carolina;
Andrew Johnson, another native of that State, and Abra-
ham Lincoln, who saw the light of day for the first time
in Kentucky.

Of this imposing galaxy of illustrious sons there were
but three who may be rated as really great men, namely,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wil-
son. Washington lived in a day when his narrow Fed-
eralism was permissible, although it was ridiculed even
then by a small minority. A man who opposed the sep-
aration of Church and State, a man who in his political
thinking leaned more toward a monarchy than a democ-
racy, Washington was little more than a heavy-bodied,
big-fisted person whose real place belonged in the army

and not in the Presidential chair. If he were living to-day
171Tener!

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
 
 
 
    
  
 
   
   

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————

ete A Re eS en

i 172 THE CHANGING SOUTH

and attempted to conduct himself as he did when he was
HON President, all the newspapers in the South, followed by a
train of howling Democrats, would cry him down. But
| when I say this I do not mean that Washington’s work
during the American Revolution was not valuable. His

 

conduct in the war entitles him to rank as a great soldier;
but I wonder what the Wilsonian Democrats in the South
would do if Washington were running for office on his

famous platform of “no entangling alliances”?
James Madison was a fine scholar, and that statement
tells his whole story. As a President he was a miserable
failure. The diplomats of Europe tricked and befuzzled
him time and again; the American Senate ruled him; and
he was as unable to direct Congress as Calvin Coolidge
has been. Stripped of his scholarly attainments and his
unquestionable knowledge of constitutional law, Madison
was as colorless a man as ever sat in the President’s chair.

\ He was far from being a great man.

James Monroe was merely an average Virginia gen-
tleman of little imagination and no brilliance. Wilsonian
Democrats in the South probably will rate him as a great
man because of the famous document he promulgated in
1823. But what would they think of Mr. Monroe if
they were told that his Doctrine not only laid down the
principle that every portion of the American continent
must be free of European control, but implied as well
that America should take no part in European politics,
a philosophy that would not fit in well with the League
of Nation’s idea? Monroe, fortunately, served in what
historians have termed the “era of good feeling”; but the

SeGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 173

real test of his statesmanship came in 1806 when Mr.
Jefferson was President. The latter had ordered Monroe
and William Pinkney of Maryland, to London to nego-
tiate a treaty with Great Britain, and specifically instructed
them to incorporate in the treaty clauses providing against
the impressment of American sailors by the English and
for an indemnity for the seizure by the English of Amer-
ican goods and vessels. Monroe ignored the instructions
and the Anglo-American treaty of 1806 amounted to
practically nothing. His failure to obey Jefferson had a
great deal to do with the development of events which led
to the War of 1812.

William Henry Harrison left his native Virginia to
enter the army at the age of eighteen, and the climax to
his successful military career was his victory over the In-
dians near Lafayette, Indiana, in 1811. On the crest of
hero-worship he was shunted into the White House; and
it is probably fortunate that death called him within a
month following his inauguration, because he possessed
none of the talents that a man should have to be a com-
petent and successful President. His forte was fighting
Indians, and not hard-headed Congressmen.

John Tyler in many respects was the William E. Borah
of his day, although his ascendency to the White House
was as accidental as Calvin Coolidge’s. He was like Borah
because the politicians couldn’t put their fingers on him
politically. The Democrats declared he was not a Dem-
ocrat and the Whigs held that he was not a Whig. The
result was that he exerted no leadership over Congress;
and about the only thing that happened during his admin-Shae

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174. THE CHANGING SOUTH

istration was the annexation of Texas. He was a fine
orator and something of a scholar, and that was about
all. He was not a great man, and certainly not a great
man in the eyes of the red-hot Confederates in the South
because in 1860 he had sense enough and courage enough
to oppose secession.

Zachary Taylor left his native Virginia when he was a
boy and migrated to Kentucky, where he grew up. In
young manhood the Indians were still prowling around in
the land of Bourbon, and, like William Henry Harrison,
he learned statecraft from the redskins. His brilliant vic-
tory over Santa Anna at Buena Vista in 1847 won for him
the sobriquet, “Old Rough and Ready,” which, like the
homely sap-bucket in Vermont, was the thing the people
at the time believed would be suitable for the White
House. He was elected in 1848 and died in the summer
of 1850. He probably was lucky, because had he lived
his indecision on the slavery question, which was growing
larger and larger at this time, might have engulfed him,
and the country as well, in disaster. An amiable, big-
framed man; but not a great one.

Andrew Johnson, in many respects, was like Abraham
Lincoln. He struggled through the same kind of hard-
ships in his boyhood and young manhood. He did not
learn to read and write until he wasa grown man. For his
rise to eminence he probably deserves more credit than any
man whose presence has adorned the White House; but
his struggles, and his rise, did not, as they did in Lincoln’s
case, make him a great man. His political patron saint
was Andrew Jackson, probably because Jackson also wasGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 175

a native of North Carolina; but he was never able to get
over his lumber-camp accent and a lack of poise which
stood in his way all his life. I must confess that a dif-
ferent story might have been told if he had had a Con-
gress composed of Southern Democrats instead of the hos-
tile Northern Republicans with whom he had to con-
tend. His career was more pathetic than anything else;
and his awkward figure never approached within walking
distance of the pinnacle of greatness.

Andrew Jackson was a quarrelsome gentleman who did
more to bring confusion into the Democratic party than
any other man whose name is associated with that great
organization. He was bull-headed and belligerent; had
not even the poise of a slaughterhouse keeper; and prob-
ably his greatest achievement was his famous attack on
the doctrine of States’ rights when he threatened to subdue
South Carolina by force if she didn’t behave herself in
1832. It is safe to say that the States’? Rights Democrats
in the South, and particularly the South Carolinians, ad-
mire Jackson about as much as Senator Jim Reed admired
the late Wayne B. Wheeler.

The most that can be said for James K. Polk, another
native of North Carolina, is that he appointed a cabinet
a little above the average. One of its luminaries was
Robert J. Walker, who as Secretary of the Treasury
drafted the only real Democratic tariff measure the South
ever produced. Practically all Polk’s policies were shaped
by his cabinet advisers. An insight into how his mind
worked was the way in which he dealt with Nicholas
Trist, the man who negotiated the American-MexicanSikes

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176 THE CHANGING SOUTH

treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. He sent Trist to negotiate
the treaty; Trist drafted it, had it signed and returned
to Polk. The latter didn’t like the document, rebuked
Trist and threatened to dismiss him, and then suddenly
accepted the treaty. If Polk had listened to Walker and
Buchanan of his cabinet and to Daniel S. Dickinson, of
New York, and Edward A. Hannegan, of Indiana, lead-
ers in the Senate, the United States would have annexed
the whole of Mexico; and Sancho Villa, of recent outlaw
fame, probably would have been a railroad construction
laborer instead of a revolutionary chief. But that was one
time when he didn’t listen. He tricked his Democratic
friends in Pennsylvania into believing he was a protec-
tionist, and then turned around and permitted Walker
to draft a free trade bill that continued in existence for
fifteen years!

I have sketched briefly, as possible, the Southern Presi-
dents, most of whom hailed from Virginia, and, as I have
said, but three of them, in my opinion, were great,—Jef-
ferson, Lincoln and Wilson. And Lincoln, it should be
remembered, was not a native of the Solid South, al-
though his grandparents were Virginians. I shall not
go into the characteristics and achievements that made
these men great; but in speaking of the great men of the
South one cannot remain confined to the Presidents. The
greatest Southerner, I believe, was Robert E. Lee. And
“Stonewall” Jackson, a native of West Virginia, also was
a great man. Thus we have five men out of the South
who may be rated great. Jackson, however, was a re-
ligious fanatic and a hard disciplinarian; but, like Lee, hisGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 77

ambitions prompted him to travel the high paths that lead
above the petty dust of the world. So many so-called
great men are opportunists whose endeavors are featured
by selfish desires and aims; but the world cannot point to
a quintet of men whose hearts were more altruistic and
whose minds were given to nobler inventions than Jef-
ferson, Lincoln, Lee, Jackson and Wilson.

In discussing the Presidents who have been born in the
South, I have, of course, discussed that section’s leading
noted men. This does not mean, however, that the South
has not produced more than her share of noted men.
But there is a distinction between being noted and being
great. The words of Carlyle come to me. In his essay
on Walter Scott, he declared, “Whether Sir Walter Scott
was a great man, is still a question with some; but there
can be no question with any one that he was a most noted
and even notable man.” One can say the same thing of
a large number of native Southerners. There is John
Marshall, for example, who in all our annals probably
stands out as our greatest constitutional lawyer, and one
who, more than any other one man, gave strength to the
Federal Constitution’s protective force over the Union.
But critics of his day held that he was but an average
common law or equity lawyer. In some respects he un-
doubtedly was a great man; but did not possess the essen-
tial greatness which in my opinion marked the men I have
enumerated.

Man’s place of birth, of course, is an accident. Some
wise fellow once said that he could have been born in any
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178 THE CHANGING SOUTH

South has produced noted men in the same accidental
way; and some of them have gone to other climes to win
fame. From North Carolina, for example, Thomas H.
Benton went to Missouri, where he became a distinguished
member of the United States Senate; and Joseph G. Can-
non, of stogie fame, was born in North Carolina, but made
his mark in Illinois. Virginia produced Woodrow Wil-
son. On the other hand, not a few men have migrated
to the South from foreign lands and made their mark.
There was Judah Benjamin, a Jew, and C. G. Memmin-
ger, who came from the West Indies and Germany re-
spectively, and sat in the Confederate cabinet. There
was James Iredell of the United States Supreme Court,
who went to North Carolina from England. Pierre
Soule, a distinguished member of the United States Senate
from Louisiana, was born in France; and Alexander
Smyth, distinguished representative of a Virginia district
in Congress, of all places, was born in Ireland.

These things mean little or nothing in so far as sectional
lines are concerned. The truth is that circumstances, for-
tune and individuality, whether in the South, North, West
or East, in this country have had a part in the making of
our notable men. Indeed, these things have had a part
in the making of notable men in all lands and in all ages.
Men have their different ideas of what constitutes great-
ness. In my opinion Emerson hit the nail on the head
when he said, “The great man makes the great thing.”
Therefore, I consider Thomas A. Edison a great man,
but cannot consider Mr. Coolidge a great man. Pasteur
was a great man; Pat Harrison of Mississippi 1s not.GREAT AND:-NEAR-GREAT 179

Andso on. It would be needless to enumerate such invid-
ious comparisons, but history is full of them. And
what I am driving at is that because a man reaches the
Presidency, or even the Supreme Court, it does not always
make him great. In the nature of things, it may make
him noted, but not great.

The South unquestionably has produced some heroic
characters,—and so has the North. The annals of the
Civil War are filled with accounts of brave exploits on
both sides. Thomas J. Jackson stood like a stone wall in
battle while shots and shell were falling about him. On
the other side, at a later date, Sheridan made his famous
ride out of Winchester, and by his bravery turned the tide
of battle. The Civil War, like all wars, brought out the
courage and nobility of men on both sides.

It is an interesting fact that Southerners have con-
tributed in many ways to the nation’s advancement. From
the days of George Sandys down to the present day of
Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd, some of the notable
acts that went into making the Republic itself and the Re-
public’s fame, have been performed by Southerners.
Sandys was born in England, but removed to Virginia,
where he served as treasurer of the colony for three
years. He built the first water-mill, the first ironworks
and the first ship in the Old Dominion, and his transla-
tion of Ovid was English America’s first literary produc-
tion.

George Mason of Virginia drafted the first Bill of
Rights in this country; Washington was our first Presi-
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180 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Madison had a leading hand in the writing of the Consti-
tution and its first ten amendments; Patrick Henry, by
his oratory, did more than any other one man to spur the
Southerners into action at a time when the South was
reluctant to war against the Crown. John Marshall made
the Federal Constitution a working instrument. Matthew
Fontaine Maury, of Virginia, the noted naval hydrogra-
pher, revolutionized ocean navigation. It was upon the
report of John Randolph of Roanoke that the Library of
Congress was based. And Robert Mills of South Caro-
lina designed the Washington monument in Washington
city. It was Commander Byrd who flew over the North
Pole for the first time in an airplane. It was—

But why go on? The South has plenty of noted men
and heroes. She also, as a matter of interest, has the dis-
tinction of having sent the first Negroes to the United
States Senate. Hiram R. Revels, of Mississippi, was the
first. He remained in the Upper House a year. And
P. B. S. Pinchback, of Louisiana, was the second. The
South also produced Ty Cobb; and if another gentleman
by that name had been born two hundred miles further
down the river, the South would have produced Mr. Irvin
Cobb. Irvin, apparently to spite the South, was born in
Paducah, Kentucky. In Civil War days Howell Cobb of
Georgia was a nationally known statesman, an orator of
note, and a courageous soldier. But when you speak of
Cobb of Georgia nowadays, it is in terms of stealing bases.

The fact that when you speak of Cobb of Georgia in
terms of stealing bases and weigh his greatness by battingGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 181

averages brings sharply to the front the fact that since the
Civil War the South, in so far as its native sons who have
remained on its soil are concerned, has not produced in
quality and volume as it did before the Civil War. It is
a long cry, for example, from Howell Cobb to William
David Upshaw, the erstwhile famous Congressional evan-
gelist of the Cracker State. But it is not difficult to under-
stand why there has been a dearth of great men since the
Civil War. It is the old story: the Solid South and its
abiding adherence to one political faith. The very fact
that party leaders in their national councils nowadays no
more think of running a citizen of the Solid South for the
Presidency than they would think of running an Eskimo,
whether the man is fitted for the job or not, is the reason
why the South produces no so-called great men. This
political isolation, however, has not prevented the South
from producing men of prominence, some of whom have
exerted a wide influence in party affairs, in Congress and
in administrative councils when the Democrats have been
in power. It is noteworthy, too, that in Democratic party
conventions, the Southern delegates, while they have
never been able to name a standard-bearer from their own
neck of woods, have, through the two-thirds rule, been
able to prevent the nomination of men they didn’t want.
And they will continue to do this so long as the two-thirds
rule and the unit rule are retained by the national party
organization.

It was but natural for Southerners, during colonial,
Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary days, to take the182 THE CHANGING SOUTH

leading part in shaping the Republic’s destiny. But, even
at that, New England was not far behind them, and it was
the genius of New England that finally succeeded in
breaking up what they called the “Virginia dynasty,”—
the leadership of Virginians in national affairs from the
days of John Smith to the outbreak of the Civil War.
The war, however, closed the gates of national leadership
against the Southerners; and since that conflict those
Southerners who have achieved fame outside the halls of
Congress and cabinet chambers usually have been those
who left the South for other climes. Woodrow Wilson
is the outstanding example. To-day Southerners take it
as a matter of fact that so long as they remain solid politi-
cally such a condition will never change. And as things
look at this writing, the South is destined to remain solid
for many election years to come.

During colonial, Revolutionary and post-Revolution-
ary times, the South, particularly Virginia and the Caro-
linas, formed practically the heart of the nation as con-
stituted in those periods. It is interesting to review how
the country’s population center has shifted since 1790.
In that year it was twenty-three miles east of Baltimore.
Ten years later it was eighteen miles west of Baltimore.
In 1810 it was forty miles northwest by west of Washing-
ton, somewhere in Virginia. Then it shifted to within
sixteen miles east of Moorefield, West Virginia, in 1820,
which in that year was in Virginia. By 1850 it had moved
to a point twenty-three miles southeast of Parkersburg,
West Virginia. In 1880 it was eight miles west by south
of Cincinnati, somewhere in Kentucky. Then it graduallyGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 183

moved into Indiana; and to-day the center of population
is at a point in Owen county, Indiana.

Inasmuch as in 1790 the center of population was at a
point almost midway in a narrow strip running from the
northern Florida border to the uppermost tip of New
England, and inasmuch as Virginia and Massachusetts
were the first colonies in this area settled by the English
whose influence was to have more bearing on the new
nation’s destiny than any other, it was as natural for the
leaders of the time to come from Virginia and adjacent
States and from New England as it is for polar bears to
come from the northern ice fields. From where else in
America could the great and near-great men of our early
period have come?

When and if the South breaks away from its political
solidarity, it should, without doubt, regain its place in
the political sun which the Civil War deprived it of. As
I have said in a previous chapter, the South, in most re-
spects, is not unlike other sections of the country. But
in one thing it has an advantage. Its people,—that is, its
white people,—are for the most part of pure strains or
mixtures, chiefly the Scotch-Irish mixture. And this can-
not be said for other sections. In the populous centers of
the North, East, Middle West and West every race in
the world is to be found, and while I do not wish to offend
by naming some of the races, it is noticeable that certain
of them do not produce the best of citizens. Police rec-
ords show that certain Latin races in the big cities produce
the largest number of criminals. The South is almost
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184 THE CHANGING SOUTH

isiana. Florida, within the past decade, has taken on a
Northern flavor, and has become the gathering place of
peoples of every nationality.

My personal opinion is that the Scotch-Irish mixture,
from which such men as Jefferson, Calhoun, Clay and
nearly all the other prominent leaders sprang, is the best
in the land, in the South or elsewhere. After Governor
Spotswood and his knights in 1716 discovered the beau-
tiful valley of Virginia and the magnificent country which
lay to the west, it was the signal for a rush of Scotch,
Irish emigrants to America. Most of them went to Penn~
sylvania and then moved South into the Valley of Vir-
ginia and on into the mountains and hills of the Carolinas.
It is from these people that many of the best folk in the
South are descended. In Eastern Virginia the pure Eng-
lish blood predominated until about the time of the Revo-
lution, when there were many intermarriages with the
Scotch-Irish. Moreover, in South Carolina the Scotch-
Irish and the French were mixed. The latter were the
Huguenots who came over to escape persecution in
France.

It is not generally known nowadays, particularly in
view of the fact that Dean Inge of St. Paul’s, London, on
a recent visit to America suggested that the city of New
York should be termed the “American Jerusalem,” that
the first Jewish emigrants to this country settled in Geor-
gia and South Carolina as early as 1734. The Georgians
opposed them on religious grounds and checked their
immigration; but in Charleston, South Carolina, they
built their first meeting house, and flourished. It was notGREAT AND NEAR-GREAT 185

until 1765 that small groups of them emigrated to New
York and to Newport. Up until the time of the Civil
War, however, Jews were scarce in most of the Southern
States; and they do not live there in large numbers now,
excepting probably in Florida and Louisiana. In recent
times there have been intermarriages between Jews and
members of some of the best Southern families; but this
was not countenanced by the social circles of fifty years
ago.

It might be said that before the Civil War greatness, so-
called, was, after the Shakespearean manner, forced on
the South, in the very nature of things; and that now-
adays the South has to do its utmost to force its great-
ness, so-called, on the nation, whenever such greatness
appears. One of the most pathetic spectacles in recent
years was the persistency with which the leader of the
Alabama delegation in the Democratic National Conven-
tion in 1924, for more than one hundred ballots, shouted,
“Alabama casts her twenty-four votes for Oscar Under-
wood!” Mr. Underwood was as fitted for the honor as
any other man before the convention, and more fitted than
most of them, but he had as much chance of being nomi-
nated as Dr. John Roach Straton has of becoming a mem-
ber of the College of Cardinals.

While it is but natural, in all the circumstances, that
the myth of greatness should have grown out of the deeds
of the early Southerners, I must repeat that out of the
army of noted men there was but a handful of really
great men. The South has a right to be proud of her
illustrious sons. They have wrought well, and have leftne

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186 THE CHANGING SOUTH

their influence on posterity; and if all of them were not
great it was not because some of them did not try hard
enough to be so. And besides, when one reviews the
world’s events since the memorable night the shepherds
watched their flocks in the hills near Bethlehem, the
South did pretty well for herself when she produced one
great man,—Robert E. Lee.CHAPTER XIII

IN CONGRESS

Before and during the Civil War the South, to use an
expression current in many of the Southern States, “killed
the job” in the matter of producing great and near-great
men, so that the men within her borders who have reached
prominence since the war,—that is, those men who have
remained on their native soil,—suffer by comparison with
their predecessors. I am speaking now chiefly of states-
men, so-called. It is true that many natives of the South,
since the Civil War, have gone from their homeland and
reached fame in various fields of endeavor. Woodrow
Wilson is an example. Sergeant York of World War
fame is another. Richard E. Byrd, the first man to fly
over the North Pole, is still another. The list could be
continued ad infinitum, including many notable names in
the field of literature. But among the statesmen, so-
called, who have remained in their native borders, there
has been almost no greatness, and very little real achieve-
ment, compared with the character and works of the men
who aided in the building of the Republic before the
Civil War, and those who made their names immortal
during that conflict.

There are many reasons for this, but two of them may
be named as the chief ones: the South’s solidarity in poli-

tics and her solidarity in Protestantism. As long as these
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188 THE CHANGING SOUTH

two things encircle her, it will be difficult for her native
sons to remain in her borders and have full and successful
play in liberal and progressive politics,—which, after all,
is the kind of politics that has made Southerners great in
the past. .

In addition to the handicaps created by political and
religious solidarity, is the tendency in the South, as else-
where in America nowadays, to predicate statesmanship on
a man’s stand on the prohibition issue. The result is that
men of high character in both camps suffer. A man might
be of excellent character and of unquestioned ability as a
statesman, but he will be vigorously opposed by the wets
or drys, in accordance with whether he is a prohibitionist
or not. Politics throughout America has descended to this
level; but the South probably is worse than any other
section in this respect. Southern representation in Con-
gress as now constituted is largely dry; and anti-prohibi-
tionists in the North, particularly men like Henry L.
Mencken, have taken this to mean that these dry states-
men possess no good whatsoever. Such a view is puerile.
Carter Glass, for example, is probably as dry as King
Tut’s bones, but his work in connection with the Federal
Reserve System is one of the finest pieces of financial leg-
islation that the parliament of any land in the world’s
history has had before it. On the other hand, the drys
are just as intolerant. For example, there is the case of
Oscar Underwood, probably one of the ablest men in the
South, whose tariff law and whose wise assistance in shap-
ing many of the most progressive measures passed by Con-
gress made him notable throughout America. He 1s con-IN CONGRESS 189

sidered one of the Devil’s own henchmen by many breth-
ren in the South because he opposes the Ku Klux Klan and
is not fond of the Prohibition law. The best he has been
able to do in his Presidential aspirations in the national
conventions was to obtain the votes of his own delegation.
And Glass has had the same experience.

Because of the Protestant solidarity in the South, it is
quite true that politicians, in many ways, have not been as
sincere as they would have been otherwise in the matter
of the Prohibition law. But the strange thing about the
Protestant solidarity on the Prohibition law is the fact
that individually a large portion of the population in the
South is wet at heart,—that is to say, men and women
drink as much liquor as they do in the North,—and as
many of them, secretly, perhaps, disapprove of the liquor
law as in the North.

It is not difficult to see, in the circumstances, that states-
men, or would-be statesmen, in the South are handicapped
as soon as they enter public life; for they either must
follow the edicts of the brethren or return to private life.
The result is that the men of real brains and character
in the South rarely ever enter public life,—unless they
are appointed to posts of responsibility in the manner that
Chief Justice Edward S. White was appointed to the Su-
preme Court. Underwood and Glass, as I have sug-
gested, are sincere in their views on public questions. I
believe that if Glass sincerely opposed the Prohibition
law, he would say so and quit public life before the people
forced him to quit it. But all politicians in the South are
not of Glass’s sincerity and integrity.E

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190 THE CHANGING SOUTH

It has become a fashion among certain of the so-called
intelligentsia in the North to rate as “morons,” “yokels,”
“saps” and “babbitts” all public men and women in the
South who support the Prohibition law. This not only is
absurd, but is the worst form of intolerance, because the
Northern intellectuals, deliberately or otherwise, fail to
take into account that, save for their dryness, and, even
their religious fundamentalism, such people are nor-
mal, and more often than not have performed good
works. There are fanatics on both sides of the question,
and it sometimes is difficult to determine which is the
worse: the dry fanatic or the wet fanatic. The first
usually is the worst sort of an ass, but the wet fanatic,
with hardly any exception, is insincere in his wetness.

So, when we come to appraise the character and works
of the representative men and women of the South, it is
better to forget, for the moment, their wet or dry inclina-
tions, and consider them in their intrinsic lights. First, it
is interesting to consider the two men in the South who
have been mentioned prominently in recent years for the
Presidency, Oscar Underwood and Carter Glass, bearing
in mind the fact that practically any man whose residence
is below the Mason and Dixon line has as little chance
of being nominated for that high honor as Henry L.
Mencken has of being consecrated a Methodist bishop.

Underwood, next to John Sharp Williams, of Missis-
sippi, is one of the ablest men the South has ever sent to
Congress. He possesses all the essential qualities of
statesmanship,—wisdom, courage, equipoise, amiability

and a wide knowledge of public problems and of parlia-IN CONGRESS I9I

mentary procedure. He probably was, during his thirty
odd years in Congress, as a Representative and Senator
from Alabama, one of the most consistent supporters of
what he conceived to be principle as opposed to expediency
that the South has ever sent to Washington. He unques-
tionably was and still is of Presidential timber, but he
rarely ever obtained more than the support of his State
delegation, because he was opposed to prohibition, and
because he fought the Ku Klux Klan, dangerous things
to do as the representative of a State that is the hotbed of
the drys and of the Kluxers. If Underwood had lived in
New Jersey or New York, I believe, he would have been
in the White House long ago.

As a business man in Congress, Carter Glass probably
is the ablest statesman the South has produced since ante-
bellum days. But that statement covers his case. Even
so fine a piece of legislation as the Federal Reserve Sys-
tem, which has done more since its passage to prevent
national financial panics in this country than any other
agency, and therefore has served as a protection for the
American people against the selfish maneuverings of the
financial barons, does not remove the painful truth that
Glass is not suitable for the Presidency. He is, by tem-
perament and outlook, much like Roosevelt, but he does
not possess Roosevelt’s versatility. He possesses sufficient
courage, but his courage is displayed after the fashion
of a fox-terrier who has been wronged by a St. Bernard.
Any individual who disagrees with him is an ass, no mat-
ter what his character or qualities may be. In his petulant
moments,—and these come often,—Glass is a snarler.

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

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192 THE CHANGING SOUTH

He curves his lips and twists his cheek at an adversary,
and in his heat often stoops to downright puerility. It 1s,
of course, natural for any Southerner to want to defend
his honor when it is attacked; but Glass is not content with
merely defending his honor. He is ready to do battle in
defending anything about himself, that has been 1m-
pugned, even if it is the cut of his trousers. He is pug-
nacious, and somewhat given to vindictiveness. Some
years ago he drove out of Virginia a State veterinarian be-
cause the man had the courage to report that Glass’s cows
showed traces of tuberculosis. He hired his own veteri-
narians, who returned negative reports. A Richmond
court upheld Glass and the State veterinarian lost his
position when Governor Byrd went into office.

Carter Glass unquestionably is an able Senator, prob-
ably one of the ablest in the Upper House to-day. That
cannot be denied. And because he is an able Senator,
pepper and salt for that august body, it would be a terrible
pity to send him to the White House, where his manner
of doing things not only would make him extremely un-
popular, but also would, in time, make him ineffectual as
an executive.

As I have said, the South “killed the job” of producing
great men before and during the Civil War, and no better
illustration of this is to be found than in the experiences
of Virginia and South Carolina. Consider Senator Claude
Augustus Swanson, of Virginia, as compared with the
ante-bellum statesmen of his State, and Senator Cole L.
Blease, of South Carolina, as compared with the illustrious
men who put that little State on the map before the CivilIN CONGRESS 193

War. Mr. Swanson has not been without opportunities
to demonstrate the old-time Virginia statesmanship. He
had fine training in the law at the University of Virginia;
he became a member of Congress; he was elected Gov-
ernor of the State; and after being appointed to the unex-
pired term of the late Senator John W. Daniel, has been
elected twice to the United States Senate. There prob-
ably is no public man in the Old Dominion who has had
less difficulty in obtaining the highest honors his State
could bestow.

Mr. Swanson has held public offices without bringing
any shame upon his State. His conduct, while Gov-
ernor, during the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, how-
ever, was not calculated to accentuate the tradition of
Virginia gallantry. Harry St. George Tucker, at present
a representative from Virginia in Congress, was the di-
rector of the Exposition, but if he had any codperation or
encouragement from Governor Swanson during the great
show, none of Mr. Tucker’s friends saw any evidence of
it. Indeed, the lack of codperation and encouragement
led some of Tucker’s friends to believe that Claude Au-
gustus’s vanity meant as much to him, if not more, than
the success of the Exposition. The big show, it must be
said, failed under Mr. Tucker’s management, but it was
not in spite of any tremendous assistance from Mr.
Swanson.

Claude Swanson is primarily a Virginia politician,
only Virginians know what that means. He has been in
his time what an old Negro once described as a “hifalutin’

orator.” He knows how to play upon the emotions of

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194. THE CHANGING SOUTH

Confederate veterans. He knows how to eulogize a poor
fellow upon whom the grave has closed. And he is one
of the last remaining statesmen who “points with pride
and views with alarm.” But if he has done anything
constructive in Congress, outside the pork barrel sphere,
the Congressional Record, unfortunately, doesn’t record
it. It is a far cry from Thomas Jefferson to Claude
Augustus, a terribly far cry.

Some estimate of the character of Cole Blease of South
Carolina may be drawn from the fact that the gentleman
upon one occasion remarked that one could go anywhere
in the world and ask, ““Who is the Senator from South
Carolina? And the answer would be, Cole L. Blease.”
Another time he called attention to the fact that he was
“the only South Carolinian who has been mayor of his
city, Senator from his county, Speaker of the House,
president of the State Senate, Governor of the State and
United States Senator; also the only one who has repre-
sented three of the State fraternal bodies in national
grand bodies.” One must confess that is an extraordinary
record for one man. It transcends in volume the honors
which have come to Chief Justice Taft, the only man
who has held the two highest offices in the land.

The best estimate of Mr. Blease’s character and out-
look on life must be drawn from the time he began cam-
paigning for Governor for the first time in 1910. He
openly appealed to the ignorant class in the State. He at-
tacked the South Carolina Supreme Court; took a violent
fling at the General Assembly; and, as if seeking new
worlds to conquer, aimed his artillery at the FederalIN CONGRESS 195

Government. After he had become Governor the Legis-
lature passed more measures over his veto than any other
body of lawmakers in America has ever been known to do.
At a conference of Governors of Southern States in Rich-
mond in 1912, he openly advocated lynching, emulating
a candidate for Governor in Mississippi some years ago,
who made lynching a part of his platform. Blease’s vio-
lent advocacy of the unwritten law apparently made him
sympathetic with criminals who had been punished after
due process of law, so he pardoned and paroled approxi-
mately 1,500 of them while he was Governor. In 1918
he prosecuted a campaign for the United States Senate
on a platform opposing America’s entry into the war and,
of course, was defeated, because South Carolinians like
nothing better in the world than participating in a first-
rate war. ‘That was one time when he miscalculated. He
ought to have confined his campaign to lynching and he
would have been sure of success. It is a far cry from
John C. Calhoun to Coleman L. Blease, an exceedingly
far cry.

Next to Cole Blease, James K. Vardaman of Mississippi
probably is one of the most unrepresentative types of
Southern statesmanship, with Senator Pat Harrison of the
same State and Senator Thomas D. Heflin of Alabama
following closely behind. Born in Texas in the heat of
July weather while the Civil War was at its height, it
was but natural probably that Mr. Vardaman should be-
come a fiery-mannered, lion-hearted disputant. Through-
out his career he was notable for being “agin” all things
that most normal persons are for, and in this he gaye Mr.

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

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196 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Blease a run for his money. Vardaman is probably a
stronger man than Pat Harrison, but the latter has the
distinction of having at least meant well even when he
was at the height of his puerility in Congress.

A distinguished advocate of lynching, it was but nat-
ural for Mr. Vardaman to oppose a visit to his excellent
State by the late Col. Theodore Roosevelt because the lat-
ter had had Booker T. Washington as his dinner guest in
the White House. That was when the long-haired silver-
tongued Mississippian was Governor of his common-
wealth. But it was not until World War days and post-
war days that he distinguished himself as a bitter oppo-
nent of Woodrow Wilson and all his policies. His oppo-
sition probably was matched nowhere in the Democratic
party in its bitterness and vigor, unless it was in the per-
son of the hot-headed Senator Jim Reed of Missouri.
Like Blease, Vardaman miscalculated, and in 1918 Pat
Harrison defeated him for the United States Senate in a
hotly contested election, the principle issue being Varda-
man’s opposition to the Wilsonian war policies. In Con-
egress Vardaman, with his long hair and Websterian de-
meanor, made a gallant figure. But in Congress now-
adays it is not so much how a man appears as what he says,
and Vardaman was forever saying things that sounded
exceedingly harsh to old-fashioned Democratic ears.

The best that can be said for the Hon. Byron Patton
Harrison, member of the United States Senate from Mis-
sissippi, is that he is altogether harmless. If he had the
brains and talents that Jim Reed of Missouri possesses he
would, without doubt, be a menace to right-mindednessIN CONGRESS 197

in Congress; but, fortunately, his colleagues pay little
heed to his observations on public questions. A refresh-
ing thing about Harrison’s utterances, it must be said to
his credit, is that they are occasionally flavored with the
kind of wit that made Uncle Remus famous. Perhaps his
real forte is that of the teaser and jokester; but the difh-
culty is in determining when the Mississippian intends to
be serious. I almost forgot to mention the fact that both
Vardaman and Harrison are members of the Methodist
Episcopal church, but I have been informed by persons
supposed to know that their membership has been more
or less turned over to proxies in recent years, although
both men adhere to the strict tenets of fundamentalism in
all matters pertaining to God and man, save probably in
the case of taking the name of God in vain.

Senator J. Thomas Heflin, as an orator, is more like
Vardaman than any other Southern representative in Con-
gress at this writing. It might be safe to say that he is a
bit more blatant than Vardaman and far more intolerant.
If his colleagues in Congress, for example, were to take
him seriously, Heflin would be leading another crusade to
Rome, where he would drive the Pontiff from the Vatican
and establish in its stead the noble Methodist hierarch.
Whether or not he really subscribes to the views and
opinions on public questions which he voices vigorously
from time to time in Congress, no man can say, for no man
save Heflin himself knows what is in his mind, or in his
gizzard, as the case may be. But in our brief history as
a Republic it is doubtful whether any member of Congress
from any State in the Union has done so much to try to

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

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198 THE CHANGING SOUTH

stir up religious strife as the Hon. J. Thomas Heflin.
Fortunately, thinking people in his own section of the
country do not take him seriously when he launches upon
an attack on the Catholic church; but there are many con-
stituents in Alabama and many persons in other sections of
the South who are inflamed by such onslaughts, and
Heflin’s work can hardly go unnoticed by students of pub-
lic affairs. If his heart and brain were as big as his voice,
Alabama would at this writing have one of the ablest rep-
resentatives in Congress; but nature is slighting in her
dispensations.

Next to Oscar Underwood, Joseph T. Robinson, mem-
ber of the Senate from Arkansas, is one of the ablest rep-
resentatives the South has had in Congress in recent years.
Slightly more hot-headed than the Alabaman, Robinson
is, nevertheless, a man of calm judgment, consistent in his
advocacy of Democratic measures and a statesman who
leans on the side of progressiveness. A trained ‘lawyer
and a man of wide experience in public affairs, he 1s, at
this writing, probably one of the ablest parliamentarians
in the Upper House of Congress.

Senator Thaddeus H. Caraway is a gentleman of alto-
gether another stripe. He might be termed the Pat Har-
rison of Arkansas, although I imagine that such a charac-
terization would be fighting talk if voiced within the
reach of Caraway’s belligerent fists. Mr. Caraway’s ob-
servations on public questions, and particularly his attacks
on his Republican opponents, might easily serve for the
leitmotif of the “Slow Train Through Arkansas.” A

Caraway speech gives one the impression of a lazy, in-IN CONGRESS 199

different Arkansas mountaineer laughing up his sleeve. I
really doubt whether the Senator takes anything seriously.
Mr. Caraway’s statesmanship consists in making people
laugh at his homely sayings which have a Will Rogers
flavor and a Mark Twain wisdom. He is a delightful
after-dinner talker, but hardly of great importance as a
before-Congress talker.

The two grand old men among the Southern represen-
tatives in Congress who demonstrate more than any others
how a State rewards faithful service are Senators Lee S.
Overman and Furnifold McL. Simmons, of North Caro-
lina. Both men have slipped by the three-score and ten
mile-post by two or three years. Both have been in the
Senate for more than a quarter of a century; and it prob-
ably is safe to say that they could remain there as long
as life is in their bodies. INNo two men in Congress are
better posted on the technique and art of pork barrel poli-
tics than these venerable statesmen; but it would be un-
fair to let their case rest with such an observation. Sen-
ator Simmons, it should be said to his credit, held the 1m-
portant post of Chairman of the Senate Finance Commit-
tee throughout Woodrow Wilson’s two terms; and if one
desires to know the quality of the North Carolinian’s
statesmanship one has but to consult the Congressional
Record for the years 1913-1919 inclusive, where one will
find some constructive governmental financing, in an un-
precedented emergency, which has not been matched, and
probably never will be matched in this generation. It
is noteworthy that these two aged Senators represent a
State that is administered by young men; and since the- N S ee A oe Serre eee

 

200 THE CHANGING SOUTH

year 1910 North Carolina has passed more constructive
legislation than any other State in the South. Overman
and Simmons, in their younger days, probably would not
have been of Presidential timber; but, to their credit, it
must be said that they have served their State in Congress
in a way that is remindful of ante-bellum statesmanship,
in their dignity, in their constructiveness and in their
insight into the needs of their people. Their names
should go down in North Carolina history as two noble
old Romans who thought more of deeds than oratory.
An anomaly among the Southern representatives in
Congress is Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, of Florida. At
this writing he is, as far as I have been able to learn, the
only Southern member of Congress who does not belong
to the Protestant fold or who is not affiliated indirectly
with that fold. Mr. Fletcher, of all things in the South,
is a Unitarian. This would not be unusual if the man
were a native of New England, where intellectuality is
measured by the square feet. But Mr. Fletcher is a native
of Sumter county, Georgia, where in so far as Unitarians
are concerned there “ain’t no such animal.” The church
census of 1916 discloses that there were in the South but
1,947 Unitarians, and these were confined to five of the
eleven former Confederate States, with North Carolina’s
994 in the lead. The States where Unitarians were to be
found in 1916 were Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Texas and Virginia,—with nary a one in Alabama, Arkan-
sas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina!
How Mr. Fletcher came to be a Unitarian in these circum-
stances is hard to understand in the first place, but howIN CONGRESS 201

he succeeded in winning a Senatorial election is a greater
puzzle. The only clew I see is that the Senator’s late
father was Captain Thomas Jefferson Fletcher, and there’s
magic in the name. Another strange thing is that in the
land which is opposed to monkey-ancestors, Mr. Fletcher
at one time was the chairman of a county board of public
instruction; and I wonder what the good fundamentalists
were thinking about when they let him slip through with
a textbook in one hand and a tract by Joseph Priestley in
the other. Maybe, after all, Florida has seceded from the
Solid South. On the other hand, a balance is to be found
in the fact that Senator Park Trammell is a good Baptist.

One of the ablest Congressmen Georgia has sent to
Washington in recent years is Senator Walter F. George.
By training a skilled lawyer and by instinct and experience
an able jurist, Senator George is far above the thoughts
and opinions of his constituency. For five years he was
an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia; and
a man can hardly remain on such a tribunal for half a dec-
ade without adopting the practice of weighing all con-
troversial questions impartially and judicially. The re-
sult is that Senator George while not going over tooth and
toe-nail to the protectionists, realizes that Southern in-
dustry must get away from its free trade ideas and adopt,
in some measure, the protective tariff principle, if it hopes
to compete with Northern industry. In a speech before
the Southern Society in New York in the Winter of 1926,
he declared that the South “needs reasonable protection
to industry,” a statement that amounts to heresy in the
land of the Klan and the lyncher’s tar pot. Time un-<n

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202 THE CHANGING SOUTH

questionably will prove that the Senator is right, although
it will be painful to Southerners to surrender to a policy
which they have hated with a vengeance for more than a
hundred years. The only alternative they have is to place
the whole country on a free trade basis or adopt for the
whole country a tariff for revenue only; but such a thing
is impossible as long as the South maintains its political
solidarity.

In so far as Southerners are concerned the greatest dis-
tinction that attaches to Senator William Julius Harris of
Georgia, is the fact that he married the daughter of the
late General Joseph Wheeler of Alabama, a gallant Con-
federate officer. Such an alliance is in itself enough to
make the South consider Senator Harris as among the
Romans who deserve to wear the laurel; but Mr. Harris
has had experience in the Federal service, which enables
him to serve his State more or less capably. In 1913 to
1915 inclusive, he was director of the United States cen-
sus; and from 1915 to 1918 he was a member of the Fed-
eral Trade Commission. A banker by profession, he is
somewhat the Carter Glass of Georgia, but lacking the
Virginian’s fiery temperament.

When Roosevelt split the Republican party in 1912, a
large number of Southern Republicans flocked to the
Progressive banner; but it was not until 1916 that the
Democrats began to take notice of the new party, and this
was because they were opposed to President Wilson’s so-
called failure up to that time to prepare the country for
war. The most conspicuous Southern Democrats who
turned Progressive were Senator Edwin S. Broussard ofIN CONGRESS 203

Louisiana, who at this writing holds his Senatorial post as
a Democrat, and Governor John M. Parker, who when
this was written was a Democratic governor of Louisiana.
A grimly humorous thing about Broussard and Parker
going over to the Progressive party in 1916 on the non-
preparedness issue, was the fact that the National Pro-
gressive platform in 1912 contained a very peaceful
stipulation for the limitation of armaments. In 1916
Broussard was candidate for lieutenant-governor on the
Progressive ticket and Parker was the Progressive nom-
inee for vice-president. Their political judgment proved
poor, because by the time the 1916 campaign had gotten
under way the Progressive party disintegrated, a large
number of Progressives having reunited with the Repub-
lican party because of dissatisfaction with Mr. Wilson’s
war policies. Both Broussard and Parker have been for-
given in Louisiana, and are Democrats in good standing,
although their fellow Democrats in the northern tier of
Southern States look upon them as traitors. The attitude
that Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi displayed to-
ward Senator Wheeler when he followed the La Follette
camp in 1924, typifies the feeling of most Southerners
toward men who they consider have traitorously deserted
the party.

John M. Parker, whether he was a political traitor or
not, unquestionably is one of the outstanding business men
of the South. As president, in turn, of the New Orleans
Cotton Exchange, the Southern Commercial Congress and
the Mississippi Valley Association, he has done as much
as any other one man during the past thirty years to pro-ict

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204. THE CHANGING SOUTH

mote the South’s industrial and agricultural growth. He
is an able man, and the South probably would be better
off if more men of his political independence and ability
and courage ruled her politics. Both Broussard and
Parker visualize the new South as she must be if she
hopes to compete in a business way with the North. They
do not let sentiment and traditions prevent them from
seeing the inevitable economic needs of their native land,
whatever her political tenets may be.

Like Senator Wesley L. Jones, of the State of Wash-
ington, Senator Morris Sheppard, of Texas, is best known
outside his home State as one of the Senate’s most vigorous
dry advocates. Mr. Sheppard, or rather Dr. Sheppard,
for he is an LL.D., comes by this naturally. Born in the
Lone Star State, reared in a Methodist home and gradu-
ated from the Southern Methodist University, he is a
typical Southern Democratic Methodist. To conceive of
such a man being an anti-prohibitionist, would be to con-
ceive of the angel Michael following the cohorts of Satan
when the latter battled with the Lord’s hosts in the clouds.
Such a status ruins Mr. Sheppard with the “wets” in the
country, but the fact is that he is an able, honest and
courageous representative of his State in the National
Upper House. His father before him was a member of
Congress, so he is a trained parliamentarian. His worst
mistakes in Congress probably have been prompted by his
too ready a leaning on the side of what he conceives to
be “law and order,” a well-known fetish of the Metho-
dist brethren. His colleague, Senator Earle Bradford
Mayfield, is a Methodist, and a thirty-second degreeIN CONGRESS 205

Mason, so the dry South could hardly expect a better
equipment of a man born in Texas, unless it is the ability
to use the rope and ride a wild horse.

Senator Kenneth Douglas McKellar, of Tennessee,
bears a name that sounds as if he might have come from
the Scotch Highlands, but he first saw the light of day
in the hills of Dallas county, Alabama, between the Tom-
bigbee and Alabama rivers. It was natural for him to
stick to the river, so he made his headquarters at Mem-
phis, Tennessee, where he has had a successful political
career in so far as holding office is concerned. In Con-
gress, however, he has not been outstanding, and the best
that can be said for him is that he has gone along with
his party satisfactorily when the occasion demanded.

His colleague, Senator Lawrence D. Tyson, is an alto-
gether different type of man. A native of North Caro-
lina, and a graduate of the United States Military Acad-
emy, he has played a prominent part in our army ac-
tivities. He served in the Spanish-American War, and as
the commander of a brigade in France helped the French
to break the famous Hindenburg line in the Somme sec-
tor. When he was not fighting Germans or Spaniards,
or legislators in the old days when the lawmaking bodies
named the United States Senators, he was engaged in the
coal and iron business successfully. Senator Tyson is
said to be a level-headed, and mayhap, a hard-headed
member of the Senate. He is one Southerner who is not
likely to let the pacifists sweep the country clean of its
defenses, if he can do anything to prevent it.

Cole Blease’s activities in South Carolina have been sos > I
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206 THE CHANGING SOUTH

startling that many persons outside that State have over-
looked the work of Senator Ellison D. Smith. Mr. Smith
probably is one of the best posted men in the South on
the subject of cotton. He is a genuine dirt farmer, and
in 1901 organized the Farmers’ Protective Association.
In 1905 he started a movement which led to the organi-
zation of the Southern Cotton Association, one of the
most influential business organizations in the South. If
former Governor Lowden, of Illinois, or Arthur Cap-
per, of Kansas, think they know anything about the prob-
lem of farm relief, without having consulted with Sen-
ator Smith, of South Carolina, they have made a serious
mistake. He is one man in Congress who can give
them valuable pointers.

To sum up, the South has been fairly well represented
for the past thirty years; but on the whole, as I have
pointed out, her statesmanship is at a low ebb compared
with ante-bellum days. Nevertheless her Senators com-
pare favorably with Senators from other States in the
Union.CHAPTER XIV

TYPES

Whether or not the Seventeenth Amendment to the
Constitution has affected the caliber of men who have been
sent to the United States Senate is debatable. The Amend-
ment was adopted in 1913, and prior to that time United
States Senators were chosen by the State legislatures. In
the South an election by a Democratic legislative caucus
was equivalent to election. But the same thing works out
in the popular vote, for election in a Democratic primary
likewise is equivalent to election. And the truth probably
is that machine politics rules the election as vigorously as
it used to rule the choices of the legislatures, so that it 1s
doubtful whether the adoption of the Seventeenth
Amendment has lowered the quality of Senatorial rep-
resentation in the South or affected it at all, for that
matter. The quality, though, unquestionably has been
lowered, as I have attempted to point out, by the South’s
political solidarity since the Civil War.

Politics, in the same manner, has affected the caliber of
State and city officials and members of the legislatures,
but there has been in the South a notable exception, and
that has been in the judiciary. In most of the Southern
States the jurists are chosen by the legislatures, and while
politics figure in their selections to some extent, the men

chosen are on the whole of high character and usually
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208 THE CHANGING SOUTH

of more than average ability. This is particularly true
of men who are elevated to the appellate tribunals.

Municipal heads, including mayors and city managers
and city commissioners are, as everywhere else, ruled by
machine politics. In those cities where the commission
form of government exists, politics is not as sharply dc-
fined as in the city where the mayoralty system holds
sway. In practically every Southern city is to be found
a central political clique which rules the destinies of the
city. Again an individual is boss. Or a wealthy citizen
whose generosity has been largely responsible for the
city’s growth and development is the boss. In these mat-
ters Southern communities are not unlike those in the
North. I dare say that in every city in the South of 75,-
000 population or more there is a political organization as
formidable as Tammany Hall in its machine rule, and in
its ability to take care of its political friends.

At random, one can pick up a daily newspaper in any
Southern community and find editorial or reader com-
plaints against the sins of commission or omission of the
political machine. Such complaints are typical of all
American towns and cities. The South, of course, has
been and promises to continue to be in a more lasting grip
of the “machines” because of its political solidarity.

The average Southern mayor is a weak vessel, subject
to the beck and call of the unscrupulous politicians. This
is not true of city managers who usually are engineers with
training and long technical experience, but the city man-
agers, unfortunately, often are hedged in by the whims
of political-minded commissioners. In the South to-day ITYPES 209

do not believe that the old-time game of graft is played in
the administration of State and municipal affairs, as many
persons suspect. Under the bicameral form of govern-
ment there was a time when councilmen and aldermen fig-
ured in graft manipulations connected with city contracts.
Such things are not done now because the people,—and
the newspapers,—are watching the administration of their
States and communities too closely. Sharp practices, of
course, are indulged in, and the old pastime of beating
the devil around the bush and dodging laws in devious
ways are still prevalent in the South as they are in the
North.

In pre-prohibition days the underworld consisted of
women who plied the ancient trade and gamblers, and in
communities where segregated districts were prohibited
the women paid their tributes to the police. To-day the
underworld not only consists of the painted women and
gamblers but of bootleggers as well, and those police who
receive tributes from the underworld now get most of it
from the vendors of illicit liquor. To the credit of the
authorities it must be said that they are constantly weeding
from the police forces men who accept bribes and hand-
outs, but in some communities tributes have been known
to go to officials from the highest to the lowest, so that
little could be done to apprehend them. It should be
remembered that bribery, as conducted by bootleggers
nowadays, is not the crude affair that it was in the good
old days when the Tweed Ring was at the height of its
power. Bootleggers are artistic. They use finesse. They
know how to pay tribute without the tribute having therien nee a
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210 THE CHANGING SOUTH

appearance of a tribute, going upon the theory that there
are more ways than one of killing a cat.

In some communities arch-bootleggers have been
known to rule the political affairs of the people by hold-
ing in their hands the power of patronage. And an arch-
bootlegger, it should be remembered, is no rude peddler.
Usually he is to the illicit liquor trade, what Raffles was
to burglary. He moves in the best of company; and his
confidants are to be found among gentlemen in the town
who bear the dubious term, “prominent citizen.”

Probably in no sphere of public life has the quality of
citizenship fallen to such a low ebb since the Civil War
as among the members of State legislatures. There 1s
an excellent reason for this. The able, honest men in
the South are unwilling to waste their valuable time in
the State legislative halls. The result is that the skimmed
milk of society pours to the capitals of the commonwealths
as Senators and Representatives, including ignorant fisher-
men on the coasts and mountaineers who never saw an
elevator until they were elected to the General Assem-
bly. But, the South is not notable in this respect. In the
North, East and West, too, are to be found legislators of
the same caliber. An excellent example of this was the
General Assembly in the State of Delaware in 1927. That
intellectual body passed two or three important measures,
and a dozen or more of the members were so unaware of
having voted for the bills, that after the bills reached the
Governor’s desk and the legislators learned what they had
done, they appealed to the executive to veto the very
measures they had voted for. While I know of no suchAAR ES 211

stupidity in the South, experience has proved that South-
ern legislators in the past have been quite capable of such
tactics. The freak bills that come before Southern law-
making bodies usually are written by ignorant, unskilled
members whose only claim to statesmanship is that the
male members of their families for three or four genera-
tions back have voted the Democratic ticket without a
break. Members of Congress on the whole are not
ereatly different from State legislators, but some of them
are men of ability and integrity.

Southern women in recent years have attempted to
improve local political conditions, but they have failed
in the South as they have everywhere else because their
political actions ultimately are guided by sentiment and
not by reason. It has been the experience, in the South,
too, that many women have followed the lead of their
menfolk in political matters. The result has been that
the women merely have swelled the electorate without
improving its intellectual quality. Women’s clubs in some
communities have striven vigorously and earnestly to im-
prove the political affairs in their town, city or State,
but invariably they have found themselves confronted
with political problems they can’t solve and with shrewd
politicians who make them believe the problems are being
solved when they are not. Some of the more intelligent
women have seen what actually was happening, and have
been content with staging entertainment programs, adopt-
ing ineffectual resolutions and bringing paid lecturers to
town and letting their political activities go hang.

The South, with just pride, points to such men as John~

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212 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Marshall, Patrick Henry, Chief Justice White and others
of similar legal ability as representative of what the
South is capable of producing at the bar. But, save in
a few rare instances, the great mold must have been
broken long ago. The law schools in the colleges and
universities in the South are largely responsible for the
running over in most of the towns and cities of pseudo-
lawyers. Young men whose temperaments and talents
better fit them for the plow, the anvil, the butcher’s stall,
the football field and the insurance office, stage the bum’s
rush to the court houses, bearing the dubious label “attor-
ney-at-law.” The result is that the quality of the South-
ern legal practitioner has fallen off tremendously, and
the legal code of ethics has suffered, as well. The old
time ambulance chaser would have something to learn
from the sharp practitioners who grace the courts and the
police headquarters with their learning in the South now-
adays. Fortunately, quite a large number of young
would-be professionals become store clerks and movie
theater ushers,—and Marshall and Henry must kick up
the dust in the bottom of their graves.

Southern merchants and bankers compare favorably
with those in the other parts of the Union. They use the
latest business methods, they keep in touch with the latest
methods of their fellow merchants and bankers in the
North, and the result is that Southern communities pro-
vide some of the finest business houses, stores and finan-
cial institutions to be found in the land. The three men
who had as much to do with the authorship and passage of
the bill creating the Federal Reserve System were South-TYPES 213

erners, and all from the same town, namely, Carter Glass, '
Robert L. Owen and Samuel Untermyer. This trio are 1 }
products of the little town of Lynchburg, Virginia, where |
a certain Judge Charles Lynch established a practice in
Revolutionary days which many Southerners follow to
this day. Mr. Glass, it must be added, however, was the
only one of the three who remained in the South. And
the first governor of the Federal Reserve Board was a |
Southerner, namely, William P. G. Harding, of Ala-
bama. Another Alabaman, Oscar Wells, recently was
president of the American Bankers’ Association.

Among the merchants, some of the most successful
operators of department stores have been Jews. This 1s
particularly true of the large cities in the South. And
there is not a community in the South of 50,000 popula-
tion or more that hasn’t one or more wholesale grocery |
houses, operated along modern lines. These houses are |
among the most progressive in the country. It might be
said of the Southern merchants and bankers that they are {|
altogether as business-like and shrewd as the Northerners,
and that they have been responsible, in large measure, for
the growth and development of the South since the Civil
War. \

The laboring class in the South is of a much higher
order than the same class in the North. This is because "
the Southerners are almost entirely free of the foreign
element which in recent years has given the Northern
trade unions so much trouble. It is a mistake, however,
to believe that the trade unionists in the South are solid
politically. They are affiliated with the dominant polit-iE

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214. THE CHANGING SOUTH

ical parties, but are to be found in greater numbers in the
Democratic organization. The strongest race feeling in
the Southern States is between the laboring class of white
men and the blacks. This is not hard to understand when
it is considered that many of the whites, particularly in the
unskilled field, are required to work shoulder to shoulder
with the Negroes, and sometimes compete with them.
The same race feeling, however, prevails in the North
where the laboring class is involved.

The white trade unionists in the South are probably
more influenced by outside agitators than the unionists in
the North, but only so long as they believe that the agita-
tor is working solely in their interests. Once they suspect
that he is not honest, even toward their opponents, they
are quick to get rid of him. The result is that there have
been many labor disturbances in the South, but none that
has been as serious as those which have been staged in the
North. A factor which has served largely to prevent seri-
ous labor troubles in the South has been the provision for
better housing facilities for employees by large corpora-
tions and an improvement in their community life.
Workers would prefer to remain in comfortable quarters,
surrounded by modern community accommodations rather
than jeopardize their interests by quibbling with their
employers or striking over the question of hours or a few
cents difference in pay.

In what is generally termed the “working class” in the
South, it should be remembered that there are various
types. There is the cattleman on the Texas plains, the
lumberman and mountaineer in the mountains of Vir-ginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas and West Vir-
ginia, cotton pickers in the Mississippi valley, fishermen
along the rivers, along the coast and on the gulf, miners
in the coal and ore mines and trappers and hunters. Each
of these types has his individual customs, and his indi-
vidual outlook on life. Much has been written about the
hardy Texan plainsmen, but I believe the most interest-
ing type of human being below the Mason and Dixon
line to-day is the Southern mountaineer in Virginia,
North Carolina and Kentucky.

In the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, within half
a day’s walk of the University, there is a race of white
people that still retain many of the customs of their
pioneer ancestors. Some of these people came from Eng-
land, others from Scotland, and among them the ancient
way of preparing food prevails. They wear the same
kind of clothes, more or less, that their forebears of four
or five generations ago wore. They have many of the
ancient superstitions. They believe in “spells” and
witches and “hants.”” Many of them resort to mysterious
charms and spell chasers. Some years ago a young moun-
taineer, fifty miles north of Charlottesville, Virginia, was
seized with a “spell,” and after the medicine men of the
mountains had worked on him unsuccessfully for weeks,
he was taken to the University Hospital. There he re-
mained for many days in a semi-coma, apparently helpless
and lifeless. The best doctors in the vicinity and from
Richmond were called in to examine him. They were un-
able to diagnose his case. They were agreed that he was
not simulating illness nor pretending that a spell had

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216 THE CHANGING SOUTH

seized him. Frankly, they didn’t know what was the
matter with him. They were unable to release him from
the “spell.” After a time he was returned to the moun-
tains, and there an old mountain woman relieved him of
his devils, or whatever he had, for the sum of $5.00. It
is not known what system she used. The story of this
young man can be authenicated.

The mountaineers, the fishermen and trappers are the
most isolated types in the South, and for that reason are
the most ignorant. The fishermen and trappers in the
river country are of the nomadic bent. They live on the
rivers or in the swamps for months at a time, fishing and
hunting in the proper seasons. Some of these men have
their headquarters in villages where their womenfolk, if
they have any, wait for them through the fishing and
hunting seasons, while they roam over large areas. On
the coast the fisherman is a home lover and rarely ever gets
far away from the little cottage that houses his family.

The mountaineers and the trappers have little regard
for the man-made laws which happen to affect their par-
ticular business. The trapper will poach, as does the
hunter, while the mountaineer makes his moonshine whis-
key with the same nonchalance that his pioneer forebears
made it. In his opinion, an opinion which he held in pre-
prohibition days when the revenue officers pursued him
for revenue only, the making of liquor is an inherent right
with which neither man nor Government has any right to
interfere. I dare say that when the last horn is blown for
the quick and the dead, a Southern mountaineer will be
found standing guard at his faithful still, hidden in aTYPES 217

ravine near a mountain stream that carries to the deep
valley below the hint of something that is not allowed
by law.

The expansion of railroads through the South has pro-
duced types that are playing a prominent part in the
industrial life of the section. In the early days of rail-
roading, the ablest rail executives necessarily came from
the North, and this was true of many of the civil en-
gineers. As the carriers grew, and as the lines were ex-
tended, there came about a change. Native sons rose to
eminence in the railroad field, and some of the best rail-
road men ‘in the country to-day are Southerners. The late
Milton H. Smith, of the Louisville and Nashville Rail-
road, is a notable example, and William J. Harahan, pres-
ident of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, is another.
Such men usually start their careers in minor positions and
work through all the grades of service before they reach
the top. When Milton Smith was in his prime the
Louisville & Nashville was one of the best managed rail-
roads in the South. The late John Howe Peyton, presi-
dent of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Rail-
way, not only was one of the finest railroad executives in
the country, but was one of the finest characters. In his
brief lifetime,—he died at the age of 44,—he devoted
much of his time and money to the training and education
of young men, and many men now high up in the service
of some of the leading railroads in the South owe their
start to his generosity.

The South, like the North, has provided its quota of
wealthy laymen who participate actively in the affairs of“4
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218 THE CHANGING SOUTH

their churches. There are among these some fine men,
but there are, too, the proverbial hypocrites, ranging from
the kind who pass the plate on the Sunday and pass the
buck to the devil during the week, to the kind who cries
“Amen” sonorously in the front bench every Sabbath, and
mulcts widows and orphans of their rightful holdings on
week-days. The South is not peculiar in its laymen of
these types. They are to be found everywhere; but
probably in the South they have a better opportunity to
hide their iniquity. Their ability to fool some of the folk
all the time, which is one of Mr. Lincoln’s characteriza-
tions of men, is given freer play in the South because of
the great strength of Protestantism. The rich man who
can provide the lucre possesses a special privilege at the
hands of the brethren, and apparently at the hands of the
Almighty, although there are some in their own flocks,
who doubt whether the Almighty would be lenient in the
circumstances. ‘Then, there are the lay preacher and lay
reader. The lay preacher usually is a suave, white cra-
vatted gentleman who shaves paper during the week and
shaves the beard off St. Luke on Sunday in so far as he
interprets that writer of one of the Gospels. He attends
the State and general conferences, and to all intents and
purposes is a “very good man, a very good man, indeed,”
but if there is a devil, as the fundamentalists say, he is
peeping around the corner and grinning with satisfaction.
Each village, town and city in the South has its notables
of this character; but the same thing is true of practically
every village, town and city in the Union.

Each community has its crusading minister, and some-‘EYPES 219

times two of them. This gentleman sees to it that all
the dens of vice are destroyed, that all the painted ladies
are herded out of town, that all the blind tigers are closed
up and sealed, that the gamblers are rounded up and re-
quired to leave before sundown, or sunup as the case may
be, and that nothing more sinful than riding in an auto-
mobile to church be indulged in on the Sabbath. He is
what might be termed a super-fundamentalist. What he
usually accomplishes in the village, town or city, where
his light is not hid under a bushel, is to obtain volumes
of publicity, get all the righteous folk stirred up, leave
town in a blaze of glory, for some other town, and at
the same time leave the town in status quo. It is only
fair to state that this type of brother is not confined to
the South, as the experience of cities in the East will
disclose, including the wicked city of New York. Ina
certain community not far from New York, in 1925, a
minister of the gospel led a squad of police into a gam-
bling den, accompanied them to a blind tiger and did
general police work, until duty called him to another
town. The South is far from being peculiar in this
respect.

In the larger Southern communities are to be found
the public letter-writing hound, that is to say, the gentle-
man or lady who rushes into print on any and every occa-
sion to air his or her views in a local newspaper. Some
towns possess as many as half a dozen of these folk; but
the average newspaper counts on one man to do the work
of setting the community,—the world at large,—and the
newspapers,—right when they err. Such a person, moreEe

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220 THE CHANGING SOUTH

times than not, is harmless, and furnishes the daily sheet
something to write an editorial about when it has run out
of subjects. Humorists and cartoonists have pictured the
cross-roads rube as a gentleman who is more than ready
to furnish the President of the United States good advice
on how to shape his foreign affairs or how to lay down
his domestic policies, whether they have to do with send-
ing the Marines to Nicaragua or lowering the tariff on
sugar. But the prince of them all is the public letter
hound in a town of 50,000 persons in the South. I know
of one newspaper which has been receiving at least one
letter a week and sometimes two from a gentleman who 1s
now beyond the eightieth mile-post, and he began writing
public letters before many of the present generation were
in their swaddling clothes.

In the larger cities in the South Negro merchants,
bankers and professionals are to be found in small num-
bers. Their business is confined to persons of their own
race. In some communities Negro merchants do business
with the very low class of white people who go by the
significant name of “poor white trash.” Such whites often
live in Negro sections, and their economic status is hardly
higher than that of the lowest class of Negroes. Some
of the best type of Negroes in the cities engage in the
barbering trade; and there are white men in the South
who will not patronize a white barber shop when they
can find a competent Negro barber to cut their hair or
shave them. Negro bankers who meet with any success
at all are highly successful and usually engage in exten-
sive real estate operations along with their regular bank-TYPES 221

ing business. The result is that rows of small homes in
the Negro quarters of many of the Southern cities fall
into the hands of Negro bankers. Such properties, to-
gether with the same type of property owned by the
whites, offer the worst environments to be found in the
South to-day. They are dilapidated, unsanitary and in a
general need of repairs. The difficulty of attempting to
maintain better quarters in these sections is that their occu-
pants usually are transients who are here to-day and gone
to-morrow and are indifferent to the condition of their
quarters.

Among the most intelligent Negroes are those who go
into the homes as butlers, those who serve as attendants in
the clubs, and janitors in the large apartment buildings
and business houses. These men are trustworthy and in
many ways are like their ante-bellum forebears in their
respectful attitude toward the whites. The Negroes in
the South, like those in the North, however, are shunning
domestic services as much as economic conditions will
permit them, so that the old-time servant is almost a type
of the past. The happiest Negro in the South to-day
probably is found along the river fronts, on the wharves
on the coast, in the cotton fields, on the railroad section
forces, on the farms and in various spheres of industrial
activity. Life to them is of to-day; to-morrow is some-
thing that rarely concerns them; and no sorrow or ad-
versity is quite capable of darkening the bright hopeful-
ness that makes them nothing more than carefree children.

A noteworthy influence on community life in some sec-
tions of the South to-day is the Northerner who has——

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222 THE CHANGING SOUTH

migrated below the Mason and Dixon line. Unlike his
“carpet-bagger” predecessor, he usually is a wealthy man
who finds in the South the climate, scenery and environ-
ment which appeals to him as a home site. If he is a
business man, as he often is, he brings to the South
Northern methods and ideas which sooner or later find
their way, in some measure, into the life of the com-
munity in which he lives. Railroads and industrial con-
cerns in recent years have called for the services of North-
erners. An example of this is the Norfolk and Western
Railroad, with headquarters in the city of Roanoke, Vir-
ginia. Almost since the organization of that road the
high officials, and particularly the presidents, have been
Northern men, trained in their early years in the service
of Northern or Western railroads. The city of Roanoke,
which at this writing has a population of 65,000, was built
up around the Norfolk & Western Railway, and because
the road is practically a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania
Railroad, it has drawn hundreds, possibly thousands of
employees from the North, principally from the State of
Pennsylvania. The result is that Roanoke has a large
number of natives of the North in its citizenry; and it
might be added that the town is probably the most pro-
gressive in Virginia, when its age is considered, and one of
the most progressive in the South. The town is typical of
the way in which Northern capital and Northern manage-
ment have played potent parts in the development of the
South.

The Northerners who migrate South usually are mem-
bers of the Republican party and retain much of their223

loyalty to the North, but as years pass they assimilate the
Southern traditions and ideals, and their children are as
loyal to the South, in time, as are the children of the
natives.

The most notable case of Northern migration to the
South is the State of Florida. That State in recent years
has drawn so many persons from sections other than
the South, that it can hardly be termed strictly a Southern
commonwealth of the old order. This is certainly true
of the coastal regions where Winter resorts to-day have
become the playgrounds of the wealthy families of the
East and North. At this writing, Florida has not been
changed materially in a political way by the influx of
Northerners, but a revolutionary change in this respect in
a few years would not be surprising. Indeed, such a
change might easily be the entering wedge which might
make way for the breaking up of the South’s political
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CHAPTER XV

LITERATURE

Before the Civil War, and for twenty years after
the war there was a distinctive type of prose and poetry
that had to do with the romantic story of the Southern
people. This distinctive Southern literature continued
until about the time the World War broke out. Then
there came a change after the war; and to-day the South-
ern writers of prominence are not different in their tech-
nique and philosophies from writers in other parts of
America. They have joined the great herd of litterateurs
who are contributing to that indefinable thing called
American literature. Some of them, it is true, are at-
tempting to picture the local scene and local customs and
manners, but in doing so they are necessarily paying
tribute to the new type of literature.

Dr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Gilmour professor of
language and literature at Liverpool University, some
years ago, defined the general term literature as “the best
expression of the best thought reduced to writing”; but he
admitted that literature’s various forms are the “result of
race peculiarities, or of diverse individual temperaments,
or of political circumstances securing the predominance of
one social class which is thus able to propagate its ideas
and sentiments.” ‘There has been a revolutionary change

since Dr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly made this observation, and
224LITERATURE 225

the change is probably more pronounced in the South to-
day than anywhere else in America. The change is the
inevitable working of evolution and was bound to come,
just as the transformation in our forms of literature after
the World War were inevitable.

In considering the literature of the South to-day, one
cannot, in the circumstances, consider it from a standpoint
of sectionalism, but from an omnipotently American
standpoint. James Branch Cabell, considered by the in-
tellectuals as one of America’s leading writers to-day, is
not applauded as a Southerner, but as an American. One
critic has described him as the “South’s foremost citizen,”
a characterization that would naturally come from a critic
who is a writer himself. It would be just as natural for
a railroad man to call William J. Harahan, president of
the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad, the “South’s leading
citizen,” or for a member of the legal profession to speak
of Justice Martin Burke, of the Virginia Supreme Court
of Appeals, the Southland’s foremost citizen. It depends
upon one’s individual interests and tastes, and it also de-
pends upon one’s conception of the definition of literature.
In the circumstances, literature would have to be the
South’s greatest field of human endeavor before it could
be said that James Branch Cabell, or any other writer, is
the South’s leading citizen.

Nevertheless, Cabell probably is the South’s leading
writer. He has undoubtedly contributed a new type of
romanticism to the literature of to-day, and as a writer,
his fame is not confined to the South, or to America. His
works are read throughout the civilized world. But, save2.26 THE CHANGING SOUTH

among a small group of intellectuals in the South, Cabell’s
works are not understood there. The average man or
woman in the South knows not an iota what “Jurgen” is
all about, so that he does not read Cabell’s books. The
ordinary business man in the South would suffer from a
cracking of the brain if he would attempt to comprehend
the subtleties of “Jurgen,” so it is but natural that he and
his wife turn to the lighter works of Ellen Glasgow,
Mary Johnston, Corra Harris, Amelie P. Troubetzkoy,
Kate Langley Bosher, Beatrice W. Ravenel, Armistead C.
Gordon, Thomas Dixon and others, not to mention the
irrepressible Mr. Octavus Roy Cohen, of Saturday Eve-
ning Post fame.

It will be noted that all the writers thus far named,
save Cabell, have laid the scenes of their stories in the
Southland and that save in the case of Cohen, they have
gone through a literary evolution which has made their
work a far different thing from what it was fifteen or
twenty years ago. The most notable example is Ellen
Glasgow. No writer in the South has pictured with
ereater accuracy the morals and manners of her people;
but her earlier books were purely romantic. To-day she
is a realist who takes her place beside the leading realists
of America.

Mary Johnston’s historical novels possess the same ro-
mantic motif. No writer in America possesses a greater
genius for weaving out of the facts of history a romantic
story of vigor and color. But Mary Johnston, of late, has
been turning her eyes toward the bench where the Amer-
ican realists are sitting. Some years ago she startled herLITERATURE 227

fellow Southerners by writing a beautiful tribute to Vir-
ginia in Whitman-like free verse. As beautiful as this
poem is, it must have pained many of the old-fashioned
admirers of her earlier works. An indefatigable digger
for historical facts and an untiring writer, she has won
deserved fame, and for years was a neck and a head in
advance of her rival, Ellen Glasgow. This stirred up
Miss Glasgow’s dander and she went to work with the
determination to outdistance her fellow novelist. The
best known critics declare that her recent books have en-
titled her to the laurels. The time was in the South when
the romanticists confined their heroisms to the aristocratic
class. Miss Glasgow was guilty of this herself in her
early books. But she got away from it, and saw what few
Southerners saw at the time—the coming of a new type of
Southerner. She visualized the rise of the middle and
lower classes in the South to places of power. And her
later works have been about the struggles and attainments
of these people. Surrendering to the school of realists she
has within the past ten years written books of real power
and beauty. Some of her old-time admirers will regret a
certain cynicism and fatalism which have crept into her
works of late, but they might have suspected that she
would come to this when they read “The Voice of the
People.” Miss Glasgow is a progressive. She is one of
those rare types of present-day Southerner who possess
the ineffable personal charm of an ancient era, combined
with the fresh outlook of the modernist.

In literature Corra Harris is something of a phenom-
enon. I leave it to critics of wider psychological and{
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2.28 THE CHANGING SOUTH

philosophical powers to determine exactly what her place
‘s in American literature. Suffice it to say that no male
writer in the South has greater vigor or finer perceptions
of the truths of life. The Protestant South, it should be
remembered, is the dominant force, so that when Corra
Harris, one time a circuit rider’s wife, paints intimate pic-
tures of the early days of Protestantism in the South, the
days when the devil was really a devil and when hell was
really a place, she probably 1s the most valuable writer the
South has in exposing to the world truths which it will be
good for the South to know. Her philosophy of life is
almost Platonic in its broadness. She is epigrammatic and
possesses a universality that is startling in its masculinity.
There was a time when the South, like other parts of
America, was reading the fascinating novels of Laura Jean
Libby. Many a youthful swain and many a lovelorn
maiden have succumbed to the influence of Libby love-
scenes and paid tribute to the Young God in the most
approved Libby manner. And then another pen began to
make magic. It was Amelie P. Troubetzkoy’s. That
good lady, a Southerner of Southerners, out-Libbyed Miss
Libby in her love technique. And what could be more
romantic than scenes along bridle paths through Virginia
valleys and down winding streams whose banks were lit-
tered with the red and gold of Autumn leaves! Many a
young heart in the South has been made to beat double
and triple time by the love scenes in Miss Troubetzkoy’s
novels. There was about them a flavor of sweetness that
reminded one of magnolias and lilacs. What a far cry
from Miss Troubetzkoy to James Branch Cabell!LITERATURE 2.29

With the Libby technique still hanging upon the South-
ern breezes, so to speak, Thomas Dixon appeared on the
scene. But he mixed his romanticism with a little salt.
He pictured a dreadful era in Southern history, when
white supremacy was at stake, and so the hated carpet-
bagger and his henchman, the traitorous Negro, were pic-
tured in all their glory. His heroines retained their
Libby-like features. They were gorgeous creatures, be-
fore whose feet strong men were wont to weep, particu-
larly if the gorgeous creatures made the strong men think
that they had no chance of winning their hands in mar-
riage. In spite of these old-fashioned loyalties, Dixon
contributed largely to the South’s historical writing. He
was the first writer to embellish the heinous work of the
Ku Klux Klan with romance and beauty. And, consider-
ing the historical value of his books, it is not surprising
that one of them became the basis for the well-known
movie production, “The Birth of a Nation.”

In their student days at the University of Virginia,
Armistead C. Gordon and Thomas Nelson Page were
close friends, and collaborated in the production of a
volume of poems, entitled, “Befo? de War.” ‘The verses
were done in Negro dialect. That was the beginning of
the writing careers of these two men. Page, in his prime,
was probably the foremost interpreter of the character of
the Southern Negro, and when he died a few years ago
after having made many notable contributions to Amer-
ican literature, he left the field to Gordon. The latter
undoubtedly knows the habits and hopes and fears of the
old-fashioned Southern Negro better than any othera

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230 THE CHANGING SOUTH

writer in the South to-day. It is not amiss to state here
that he is descended from the same Gordon ancestor from
whom Lord Byron was descended. When he was a stu-
dent with Page, he conceived the plot for “Marse Chan,”
one of Page’s best known Negro stories. Whether the
plot in Gordon’s hands would have been a finer piece of
work, the gods alone know, but it is safe to say that Page’s
story would be difficult to improve, what with its pathos
and humor, and its ineffable charm. Gordon, in addition
to his dialect and other types of stories concerning the
South, has devoted a great deal of his time to historical
and genealogical writing; and he is the first American to
have written a biography of Lord Byron.

A writer who has attracted little attention outside the
South, but who has pictured accurately certain types of the
Southern girl and her problems, 1s Kate Langley Bosher.
Mrs. Bosher’s personal charm and her manner of writing
remind one of Ellen Glasgow. She, too, 1s as conversant
as any person writing in the South to-day, with the South’s
social problems and with the evolution of the South’s
customs and manners. Her novels are in a lighter vein
than those of Miss Glasgow, and possess the real humor
of the South; but because she chose to use insignificant
vehicles, she has received little or no recognition from
American critics.

Beatrice W. Ravenel, of South Carolina, is an alto-
gether different type. Although by blood and marriage,
a member of the foremost aristocratic class in her home
State, she belongs to the modern school of writers, and has
contributed some charming short stories and essays toLITERATURE 231

magazines concerning social life in Charleston and else-
where. Unlike Miss Glasgow and Mrs. Bosher, Mrs.
Ravenel received her education at one of the leading in-
stitutions of learning for young women in the North. So
that in her writings she discloses an outlook and sometimes
a technique, that reveals the influence of a Northern en-
vironment. There is probably no locality in the South
more suggestive of the Old South to-day than the city of
Charleston. Its old homes, its retention of old customs
and its loyalty to old names and old traditions, makes it a
golden place for material of the kind that Mrs. Ravenel
uses.

One of Cabell’s notable contemporaries in the South 1s
Thomas S. Stribling of Tennessee. The Virginian and
the Tennesseean are of about the same age. Stribling’s
best known novels, “Birthright” and “Red Sand,” how-
ever, are of the conventional type of the day, so that he
cannot be classed with Cabell as a writer of the new ro-
mance. A better known native of Tennessee is Henry
Sydnor Harrison, whose “Queed” and: “Wi.V2s) Byes
brought him fame a decade and a half ago. Harrison, a
product of journalism, was a columnist for years on the
Richmond Times-Dispatch, where his talent first became
known. Educated at a Northern University, he naturally
obtained a broad outlook, and when his two novels, above
mentioned, first appeared they were immediately popular.
Both stories typified, as Harrison saw it, the customs and
manners of the South as it was when they appeared.
Queed, was a queer type of newspaper man, probably the
queerest that has ever been pictured in a novel, so that heAE
i

—

————

Slee

2S ere Se Se Syren,

oar
,
/ r

Fete

ee ee

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

232 THE CHANGING SOUTH

was refreshingly different from the Southern fiction heroes
that had preceded him. Around the career of Queed,
Harrison, with a technique reminiscent of Dickens, as-
sembled Southern types which made possible the distinc-
tive charm that for so many years has belonged to that
section of the country. He bordered upon realism, but
never surrendered to it to the extent that he destroyed
beauty. This writer removed to New York, where I un-
derstand he is now employed, in his forty-eighth year, as
a cub reporter on the New York World. His friends were
informed that he wanted to become a reporter so that he
might get closer to his fellow men again, and because he
felt that he had lost touch with the world by shutting him-
self up in a novelist’s writing room. Like Ellen Glasgow,
Harrison’s later novels have followed the channels of
realism, and this is notably true of his “Andrew Bride, of
Paris.”

One of the most popular writers in Southern journalism
to-day is Robert Quillen, of South Carolina. Quillen
won fame some years ago by contributing humorous and
philosophical paragraphs to the newspapers. His homely
wit and incisive philosophy attracted wide attention and
to-day he contributes editorials and paragraphs to more
than 150 newspapers throughout the country. He 1s a
contributing editor on the staff of the American Maga-
zine, and has two books to his credit, the best known of
which is “One Man’s Religion,” in which he tears down,
with Tennysonian simplicity, the futility of creeds and
hidebound formalisms. Quillen is an odd character, and
in 1925 startled his neighbors in Fountain Inn, S. C., byRta

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

LITERATURE 2.33

erecting in his front yard a statue to Adam, the first man.
His humor is so refreshing and so appropriate to modern |
social trends that one naturally is inclined to suspect that |
there is a trick somewhere. I discovered that it lies in

the fact that Quillen is a native of Kansas, that dusty pro-

ducer of odd characters like William Allen White and

Ole Ed Howe. How could Quillen be anything else

than something approaching a freak in Southern litera-

ture? But it must be confessed that he has given to the A
South, and to America as well, a balance and sanity that
it long has needed.

Although since the outbreak of the World War in
1914, there has been a steadily increasing interest in
poetry, and although some notable verse has been written
by American poets, especially by the younger school of
versifiers, the South has produced no verse writer of .
unusual distinction. With Edwin Arlington Robinson, a |
native of New England, as the criterion of modern Amer-
ican poetry, it would be difficult to find a poet anywhere ||
in the Nation to compare with the Poes, Emersons and
Whitmans of another age. Robinson’s latest work, “Tris-
tram” is said by critics to be the finest American achieve-
ment since the Victorian days of English poetry. If this
is true, there has been no figure in the South since the
Civil War to compare with him. It is true that since the
close of the war, as is the case following all wars since
writing verse became one of man’s accomplishments, there
has been a wealth of poetry paying tribute to the glory and
valor of the Southland. Such a name as Father Ryan’s,
whose “Sword of Lee” stirred the Southern people,ian

a ME ae
oO re te ee ree

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

   

234. THE CHANGING SOUTH

comes to mind. But there has been no poet whose work
would pass the severe scrutiny of the modern critic. This
may be the critic’s fault. Iam not prepared to say.

However that may be, the outstanding poets, next to
Robinson, in America, have not been Southerners, but
Northerners, Easterners and Westerners. Such names
come to mind as Vachel Lindsay, Robert Frost, Edgar
Lee Masters, Anna Hempstead Branch, Amy Lowell,
Louis Untermeyer, Brian Hooker, Robinson Jeffers, Wil-
liam Rose Benét, Sara Teasdale, Elinor Wylie, Carl Sand-
burg, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and the two famous poets
who sacrificed their lives in the World War—Alan Seeger
and Joyce Kilmer.

While such poets were making songs in the North, East
and West, the South was producing Conrad Aiken, an
exquisite singer, but a man whose poetry was as free. of
real plot and real thought as the Doomsday Book. An-
other Southern versifier was William Percy, of Missis-
sippi, a lyricist of real distinction who hearkened back to
the classics of his forefathers. The story of the prophet
being without honor in his own country is applicable in
eloquent fashion to Samuel Minturn Peck, a lyricist of
Alabama. It is true that he is reminiscent of the Vic-
torians, particularly of Tennyson, but no person who ad-
mires the Victorians will quarrel with that. Some of the
most exquisite singing that has come from the South has
been Peck’s but, strange to say, the only recognition he
has received has come to him from New England. He
is now well past his three score and ten years; but is
still writing distinctive verse, notably for such metro-LITERATURE 235

politan newspapers as the Boston Transcript. A scrutiny
of Southern newspapers for many years, however, has
failed to disclose one of his poems in their columns, and
I wonder if his singing will turn to silence without having
been heard by some discerning Southern editor.

Distinctive verse has come in recent years from the pen
of Du Bose Heyward, of South Carolina. Heyward is
another product of that charming environment, Charles-
ton, and his “Carolina Chansons” are notably typical of
the Old South done up in a modern dress. He has done
much in his brief career—he is in his early forties, at this
writing—to promote interest and taste in poetry. He
founded the Poetry Society of South Carolina, one of the
few organizations of its kind in the South, and has played
an active part in the Poetry Society of America. His con-
nections with these organizations inevitably have led him
to the lecture platform where he has interpreted the trend
of modern poetry with skill and scholarly insight.

One could not discuss Southern poetry without point-
ing to the work of the late Frank M. Stanton. This versi-
fier, or to use a more appropriate term, this singer, was a
columnist for more than thirty years on the Atlanta Con-
stitution. He died in 1925. Stanton’s best known poems,
“Mighty Lak a Rose” and “Just Awearyin’ For You,” are
representative of the white man’s notion of what a Negro
song ought to be. They bespeak the ideal of Negro song.
The Negro would never as long as he lived, improvise a
song quite comparable to “Mighty Lak a Rose,” never-
theless, the sentiments expressed in that song have lived
in the Negro heart. Stanton thus was the interpreter of; - se ”
ON ee Sete Oe yr ne
—_

236 THE CHANGING SOUTH

yt the highest love and sentiment in the Negro character.
His insight into the hopes and fears of the Negro was
Apollonian in its breadth and sympathy.

| 3 Another imported Southerner, not unlike Quillen in

f his whimsical humor, is Judd Mortimer Lewis who has

et ) been columnist and versifier for the Houston, Texas,

] Post-Dispatch for nearly thirty years. Lewis is a native

of New York State, but his best singing has been of the

| South. His verse is of the homely type. In lyrics he

p14 has pictured the hopes and fears of the children of the
. South in a way that is reminiscent of Eugene Field.

The intelligentsia in the North are often prompted

+ for some reason or other to belay the Saturday Evening

Post, but that journal has done the nation a service by

printing the stories of Octavus Roy Cohen, of Alabama, in

. which Cohen pictures, better than any other writer in the

South has done, the character and manners of the modern

Southern Negro, that is, the young Negro of the present

generation. The antics of his Florian Slappy, taken from

the Negro colony of Birmingham, are realistic studies of

the present-day Negro mind and outlook in the South.

i There is as much difference between Florian Slappy and

f _ Uncle Remus as there is between Colonel Billy Mitchell,

of aviation fame, and General George Washington.

\, Changed social conditions among the Negroes in the

South have been pictured by Cohen with photographic

accuracy, and while some of his characters and scenes are

exaggerated, they undoubtedly give the reader a correct

view of the new Southern Negro, whose economic inde-

pendence rapidly is increasing and whose business sagacityLITERATURE 237

and prowess consequently are developing. At the same
time the Negro’s new status has not changed some of those
characteristics which have made his race distinctive, charac-
teristics that appeal to the humor of the white man. Such
a man as Florian Slappy is far more humorous in his
metropolitan sophistication than Uncle Remus was in his
rural wisdom. ‘The tar baby has departed. His figure
is lost beyond the horizon of the past. In his stead, thanks
to Cohen, there has come out of the South a new and
refreshing type and one that unquestionably may have
something to say about how the South’s future is going to
be shaped.

Cohen’s picture of the New Southern Negro probably
would never have been painted but for the wisdom of
George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening
Post. The story is told that Lorimer, year after year,
rejected manuscripts from Cohen’s pen concerning the
activities of baseball stars. It appears that he knew little
or nothing about sports, but he persisted. Finally, after
many rejections, he got on a train, speeded North, and
faced the editor in his lair. Lorimer promptly told him
that when he wrote about sports he picked a subject about
which he knew nothing. This stunned Cohen, but Lori-
mer made amends. Why didn’t Cohen write about the
new Negro in Birmingham, a subject with which he was
wholly familiar? Yes, why not? thought Cohen, and he
hotfooted it back to Birmingham and composed his first
Florian Slappy story. It was accepted immediately.

One of the last remaining figures of the old classical
South is Edward V. Valentine, sculptor, of Richmond,Te,

+O —aaiete An aap ne Nae of

  

   

238 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Virginia. Mr. Valentine would not appropriately belong
in a chapter concerning the literature of the South if it
were not for the fact that he has been writing a diary con-
sistently since the year 1857. And any man who can
write a diary for more than seventy years deserves to be
reckoned as a writer of note, as well as a sculptor. The
only difficulty is that Mr. Valentine has never published
his diary. Newspapers in his State and book publishers
have urged him to publish portions of it, at least, but he
has refused steadfastly, holding that he intends to use the
material for his memoirs. When it is remembered that
this man represents the best of the old-time classical
scholarship in the South and that during his long life—
he is in his ninetieth year at this writing—he has met with
some of the foremost notables of history, one is struck
with the potentialities of his long diary.

Valentine’s best known sculptures are his recumbent
statue of Robert E. Lee in the Lee chapel at Lexington,
Virginia; his bronze figure of “Stonewall Jackson” in the
same town; and his heroic bronze statues of Jefferson
Davis and allegorical female figures, symbolical of the
South, in Richmond. He studied sculpturing in France,
Italy and Germany and was a pupil under some of Eu-
rope’s best known sculptors, among them being Jouffroy
in Paris, Bonaiuti in Florence and Kiss in Berlin. His
diary, properly edited and arranged, is destined some day
to be a notable contribution to Southern literature, par-
ticularly that part which must deal with the days when
General Lee was posing for his famous recumbent statue

in Lexington. And if the diary reflects the opinions onLITERATURE

modern frends in art which Valentine has voiced to close
friends, it will give an interesting glimpse of the mental
reactions to changing times of a man who has lived
through the most interesting period of the South’s his-
tory. It is not amiss to say that Valentine’s deepest con-
cern is what he conceives to be the South’s failure to main-
tain its old-time standards of scholarship and its tradi-
tional love for the classics. In his estimation the modern
so-called educated man is a moron compared with the edu-
cated man of his young days, of the days when Dickens
and Thackeray toured America and when Poe’s name was
still fresh on the lips of poetry lovers.

Among the South’s leading intellectuals of the present
generation is John Powell, the pianist and composer.
Powell obtained a B.A. degree at the University of Vir-
ginia and then studied music in this country and in Vienna.
He made his début as a pianist in Berlin in 1907 and
began composing in 1909. He is an ardent lover of the
South as his compositions disclose, notable among them
being his piano suite, “In the South” and his overture, “In
Old Virginia.” One of Powell’s chief concerns in respect
to the South’s future is the encroachment, as he sees It,
of Negroid blood upon the whites. After the World War,
this idea persisted in his mind, so he joined the new Ku
Klux Klan organization, believing that as a member of
that order he could aid in stemming the Negroid move-
ment.

In a few months he was disgusted with the operations
of the Klan and gave up his membership. Then he
founded what is known as the Anglo-Saxon Club. He240 THE CHANGING SOUTH

has written some interesting papers on the subject of the
Negro and his future, and lectured in many places in the
South on the purposes of the Anglo-Saxon Club, notably
at the University of Virginia. It was due to Powell’s
energy that the General Assembly of Virginia, a few years
ago, seriously considered, but fortunately did not pass, a
proposed measure establishing persons having Indian
blood in their veins as being in the same class with
Negroes. To understand what this would have meant,
one must remember that some of the best families in the
Old Dominion are descended from the Indian Princess,
Pocahontas, including the Bolling family of whom the
second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson is a member. Powell and
his associates stirred up a hornets’ nest when they pro-
posed such a law, and echoes from the excitement are still
being heard in Virginia. He is a writer of distinction, as
well as a composer of international fame.

The day is not far off, I believe, when there will be no
distinctive Southern literature. Indeed, that day is upon
the South now. The section’s political and religious sol1-
darity is not preventing its writers from becoming one
with the writers of other sections in their technique and
philosophies. Books and stories will be written about the
South as a section for many years to come, but they will
be written with an American rather than a Southern point
of view. This is inevitable in the very nature of things.
The South is saturated with the literatures of the world;
and literary values no longer are being predicated upon
sentiment and tradition, but upon the basis of modernLITERATURE

appraisement. The South gradually is surrendering, in its
literary accomplishments, and in its literary tastes, to the
great Literary Battalion of Death, composed of those
critics who are bent upon destroying the old gods.aa

> i ant Aengimaech aie Ss en. Nias peta mea

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CHAPTER XVI
NEO-KU-KLUX

The art of lynching is one that was created and devel-
oped in the South in so far as the term is concerned, al-
though the practice of flogging, hanging and burning at
the stake, was known to man centuries before America was
discovered by white explorers. The result is that the
South, more or less, since the day of the illustrious Judge
Charles Lynch, of Virginia, has borne unjustly the repu-
tation of being the only section in the country where
lynchings are indulged in by angry mobs, in spite of rec-
ords which show that such crimes have been committed
in large and small degree in practically every other State
in the Union.

Judge Lynch, who lived between the years 1736 and
1796, was a justice of the peace in Bedford county, Vir-
ginia. During the last year of the Revolution, when the
anti-British feeling was strong, he found pleasure in hang-
ing Tories and Loyalists without the benefit of trial by
judge or jury. The application of the term lynching to
the practice of murdering people without a fair hearing,
was a natural consequence, and it has stuck to this day.

Judge Lynch’s lawlessness was isolated, so it remained
for the Ku Klux Klansmen of Reconstruction days to put
into practice the Lynch technique on a large scale. The

Klansman of Reconstruction days was prompted by but
e4eNEO-KU-KLUX

one aim, namely, to maintain white supremacy against the
efforts of “carpet-baggers” and their Negro allies to make |
the blacks dominant politically, and if possible socially,
in the South. The activities of the Reconstruction Klans-
men brought a stain to the South which that section unfor-
tunately has never been quite able to remove. Where
Judge Lynch had hanged a small number of Tories and
Loyalists, the Klansmen of 1866 and 1871, inclusive,
wrote a bloody chapter in the history of the South, which
included floggings, tortures and killings in every State in
the South on a wholesale scale. But by the year 1875 the
activities of the Klansmen had ceased altogether. But this VI
fact should be marked: Lynchings did not cease. There |
were lynchings year after year in the South—and in the
North, too—at the hands of mobs of so-called citizens,
who were not affiliated with any secret order, certainly not
with the Klan. Reviewing the record of lynchings from |
the year 1885 down to the year 1915, it 1s interesting to |
note that the practice of lynching was indulged in quite |
freely, and that whites as well as blacks were put to death, |
although the number of Negroes lynched each year was
larger. I use the year 1915 as the end of this record
because it was then that the new Ku Klux Klan, the
organization as we know it to-day, was founded at At-
lanta, Georgia, by Col. William J. Simmons.

In the period between 1885 and 1915, there was a much
larger number of lynchings than for the period between
1915 and 1925, the decade in which the new organization
of Klansmen has flourished. In the ten-year period,
from 1885 to 1895, there were 1,897 lynchings, nearlySeat

aeanamiemaiiets ee
eee |

   

  

244, THE CHANGING SOUTH

half of whom were whites. In the decade from 1907 to
1917, there were 724 lynchings. And from 1918 to the
year 1925, there were but 395. It can be seen from these
figures that during the entire period, from 1885 to 1925,
the greatest number of lynchings occurred before the new
order of the Ku Klux Klan was organized. These figures
are noteworthy because they disclose that the new Klan
as such is not particularly identified with homicides, and
that on the contrary lynchings are crimes that arise out
of social conditions with which the new Klan has had
little or nothing to do.

The Chicago Tribune some years ago printed statistics
covering the years 1882 to 1903 inclusive which showed.
that during the twenty-year period 3,337 persons were
lynched. Of this number 2,385 were in the South and
752 in the North. The newspaper disclosed that the
lynchings in the South were for murder or rape and that
those in the North were for murder or offenses against
property. This reveals the wide difference in the social
condition of the two sections,—the South with its huge
Negro population and the North with its small Negro
population. In the South more Negroes, by far, than
white persons were lynched, while the reverse prevailed in
the North.

The new order of the Ku Klux Klan, it would appear
from these figures, certainly has not increased the num-
ber of homicides, even if it has, as some critics con-
tend, been responsible for the depredations which have
occurred in the South since its organization in 1915.

In October, 1915, the World War had been raging forNEO-KU-KLUX 245

a year. American newspapers for more than twelve
months had been regaling their readers with accounts of
war activities. Ihe German armies had invaded the
brave little country, Belgium, and stories, from time to
time, had appeared in American newspapers, in spite of
our supposed attitude of neutrality, recounting German
atrocities. In this country, patriotic Americans turned
their thoughts to past feverish eras in our own history.
In young men’s minds in the South, the days of the Civil
War returned; battles whose glories had been handed |
down were refought, in mind and spirit. Inevitably, the
days of the Reconstruction Klansmen caught the fancy of
a certain young man in the South. Fired by war talk from
across the seas, and visualizing our own entry into the
fray, at some later time, the idea of “100 per cent. Amer- |
icanism”? seized him. Nativism caught his fancy. Per-
haps, the German represented the arch-opponent to Amer- | |
ican nativism as he envisioned it, but all foreigners, more
or less, must be foes. Moreover, the South was a Prot- | |
estant domain, so necessarily, as had been in the times of
his forefathers, the Catholics were foes. Reconstruction
days when the old time Klansmen had ridden down the
lanes in hood and gown to frighten Negroes from their
cabins, established opposition to the Negro. The thing to
do, then, the young man thought, was to reorganize the .
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in all their glory. The
young man’s name was William J. Simmons. |
On October 16, 1915, Simmons, with thirty-four associ- {|
ates, three of whom had been members of the old Klan,
gathered on top of Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, thees i ee ete ee ee en
ee Se Ee er a =

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

246 THE CHANGING SOUTH

mountain of rock upon which now is being carved a gigan-
tic monument to the Confederate Army. ‘They had ob-
tained a charter from the State of Georgia. Atop the
mountain they took an oath of allegiance to the “Invisible
Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” In many ways,
Simmons, at this time, was not unlike Don Quixote, who
imagined a flock of sheep to be an army of opponents
which he must vanquish. Simmons and his associates were
determined to vanquish foes who under our organic and
statutory laws, are entitled to live, own property and pur-
sue happiness in the same measure that Simmons and his
associates enjoy those rights. But, that was neither here
nor there. Somebody had to be vanquished. The Ger-
mans had invaded Belgium and cut off the legs and arms
of infants, so the thing for Simmons and his friends to do
was to wear white masks and long white gowns and put
an end to the invasions and encroachments of Catholics,
Jews, Negroes, pacifists and Bolshevists. The Bolshevists
had not shown their faces in 1915, but they were in the
making and Simmons and his friends recognized them
when they saw them.

The mental attitude of Simmons, et al, was not a new
thing. The members of the old Know Nothing party
had indulged in the same kind of puerility. The
Know Nothing party’s fetish was 100 per cent. American-
ism, although it had not gone by that name. At first the
Know Nothings called themselves “The Sons of 76” or
the “Order of the Star-Spangled Banner,” and formed for
the purpose of keeping out the hated foreigners. Their
slogan was “Americans must rule America,” the sameNEO-KU-KLUX 247

principle which the new Klan adopted. Its chief concern
was the Catholic church, and it hoped by cutting down the
immigration of those races which belonged to the Cath-
olic church it could keep America pure and undefiled.
The Know Nothings were organized about the year 1850;
but their nativism had run back to colonial days. From
1830 to 1850 there had been a marked nativism because
of the increased Irish immigration. And these Irish were
members of the Catholic church.

The Know Nothings would never answer questions.
Their stock answer to queries was, “I don’t know.” The
same idea of secrecy was taken up by the new Klan. In
spite of the Federal Constitution, in spite of the protective
statutory and unwritten laws of the land, the Know Noth-
ings, in time, were able to draw many adherents to their
banners, because they broadcast their nativism with a cer-
tain amount of plausibility. In 1854 they showed con-
siderable strength in the election. They surprised their
opponents by carrying the State of Massachusetts and
nearly succeeded in electing their candidates in New York.
A parallel came later when the Ku Klux Klan, between
1919 and 1924, inclusive, entered State and National
politics with surprising success. It was successful in local
and Senatorial races in Texas and Oregon; and reached a
place of power in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois by the year
1923; but as it grew in power north of the Mason and
Dixon line, it apparently decreased in strength in the
South, and in the year 1926 and 1927 was repudiated by
the electorate in its home State, Georgia.

After having gathered “under a blazing, fiery torch” on———

i: celled sii atic dns aces badging
ee,
>

eaten

 

ee

ee

248

 

THE CHANGING SOUTH

top of Stone Mountain on that memorable October night,
1915, Col. Simmons and his associates turned their atten-
tion to forming a Nation-wide organization, with their first
campaign in the South. The newspapers were being filled
with accounts of the World War. The election of 1916
had hinged upon Mr. Wilson’s policy of neutrality.
Thousands of people voted for him on the strength of the
slogan, “He kept us out of the war!” During the Winter
of 1916-1917, the famous exchange of notes with Ger-

many was taking place; and America’s entry into the con-

flict was inevitable. Simmons and his associates were

working persistently, but were unable to make a strong
appeal at a time when men’s thoughts were turning to the
battle fronts of France.

Finally we entered the war, and all American activities,

Klan or otherwise, were submerged in the prosecution of

the war.

The conflict made brothers of Protestant and

Jew, of Protestant and Catholic, of white man and Negro.
The war drove from the minds of the 100 percenters the
idea that alien-born Americans should be driven into the
sea like the Gadarine swine. Work had to be done across
the seas,—and it had to be done with men of all creeds
and bloods codrdinating their minds and talents and fight-

ing abilities. So the year 1917 passed without incident in

so far as the Klan was concerned. As a matter of fact,

Simmons and his associates had to suspend their activities.

They and their relatives and friends were too busy work-

ing and fighting shoulder to shoulder with the very men

and women whom they had vowed on top of Stone Moun-NEO-KU-KLUX 249

tain to check and throttle and if possible drive from the
domain. The campaign had to wait.

The year 1918 passed uneventfully in so far as the
Klan was concerned. This was a glorious year for the
American army on the Western front. Catholics, Jews,
men who originally had been pacifists and Negroes were
coérdinating their talents and courage to defeat the Huns.
The doctrine of nativism was as dead as a dodo during
this eventful year. All the creeds and races of the earth
were fighting for the Wilsonian conception of democracy.
They had no time for quarrels and contentions about
forms of worship and religious beliefs. They had no time
for considering the color of skins,—whether they were
white, yellow, brown or black. They had a big work to
do,—and they were doing it well.

In November, 1918, the war officially ended. A month
later plans were being made for the demobilization of the
Protestants, Catholics, Jews and foreigners. The Spring
of 1919 saw the last detachments of American troops on
American soil, save those which had been sent to the
Rhine to join the Allied armies of occupation.

The glory of conflict, however, was still in the minds
of men. Many Americans were disappointed that the
Germans had not been driven to Berlin and there cooped
up and flogged or burned at the stake. Their atrocities
in Belgium justified it. War talk was prevalent. The
fighting spirit was still high. Glory had come to few.
Glory had not come to many, because luck was against
them. But glory was to be had if one but looked for it.
Col. Simmons and his friends saw their chance, so they\
\

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

—

i
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So,
a

i ~

250 THE CHANGING SOUTH

took up their work in the Spring of 1919 where they had
left off in 1916 and in the early part of 1917. In May,
1919, American newspapers carried the account of the
burning of five Negro churches in a small community in
| Georgia. The work was attributed to the Klan; and from

: az Ee
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mp

> that time until the present most of the depredations, in-
| | cluding murders and destruction of property in the South,
TeLe have been laid at Klan doors.

The burning of the churches was the only act,—

whether it was done by the Klan or not,—that attracted

ta] nation-wide attention. No other activity of the Klan is

recorded for the year 1919. In 1920, however, the Klan

re) began to show its colors. In Jacksonville, Florida, 500

members of the new organization had its first parade in

the South. The appearance of the Klansmen in all their

| regalia was a warning to Negroes who it was claimed had

| been disorderly at the polls. In the same year the Klan

took a hand in a vice crusade in Anniston, Alabama. And

another parade was held in Columbus, Georgia. These

events were about all that marked the activities of the
order during 1920.

In 1920, however, within the organization, an im-

( | portant event occurred, although it did not receive wide

public notice. Col. Simmons, who now was the Imperial

Wizard, and his associates, had by this time obtained a

membership of about 5,000. Simmons was not a busi-

ness man. He confined his activities to spellbinding the

native white Protestants of the South with the night-

mare of a nation overridden with Catholics, Jews and

Negroes. But his eloquence alone could not be dependedeAaGeR

  

NEO-KU-KLUX 251

upon to make the order spread and grow as the founders
desired.

So it was that Edward Y. Clarke and Mrs. Elizabeth
Tyler were hired to take charge of the financial manage-
ment of the Klan and to direct its propaganda depart-
ment, Clarke and Mrs. Tyler were highly trained oper-
ators. They had been connected with the Southern Pub-
licity Association and had directed successful drives for
the Anti-Saloon League, the Roosevelt Memorial Fund
and the Near East Relief work. Under their able man-
agement the Klan grew to a membership in 1925 esti-
mated at 100,000, with members in many States in and
out of the South.

With the alert Mr. Clarke and the keen-witted Mrs.
Tyler, in charge, the Klan grew and thrived to such an
extent that it soon attracted nation-wide attention. News-
papers in the North were beginning to speak of it as a
“menace” and “un-American”; and public officials were
denouncing it at banquets and political gatherings. Cath-
olic prelates and Jewish rabbis were belaying it. The ball
was started rolling in 1921 when Mayor Hylan, of New
York, in a letter to Police Commissioner Enright, issued
a warning against the operations of the Klan. There was
no room in his great city, he said, for an organization that
promoted race antagonism. Col. Simmons immediately
‘ssued an announcement in which he offered a reward for
the conviction of any one who used the Klan’s name un-
lawfully.

Clarke and Mrs. Tyler, by the year 1921, were reaping
large financial returns for the organization. The mem-~—

————

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252 THE CHANGING SOUTH

bership fee was $10. Four dollars went to the Kleagle
or local solicitor when he signed up a new member. One
dollar went into the pocket of the King Kleagle who
ruled over the State; fifty cents went to the Goblin who
had charge of a district; and $4.50 went to headquarters
at Atlanta. How much of this $4.50 went to Clarke and
Mrs. Tyler, I do not know, but former Klansmen have
accused them of getting a large portion of it.

The first act of atrocity, attributed to the new Klan,
occurred in January, 1921, when a Negro, named A.
Johnson, in Dallas, Texas, was branded on the forehead
with the letters, “K KK.” His attackers used acid. In
April, at a meeting of the Richmond Chapters of the
United Daughters of the Confederacy, a resolution was
adopted calling on State officials to bar the Klan from
the Old Dominion. In May a huge celebration of the
Klan was staged in Atlanta; and in the same month 2,000
members held a ceremony in Cincinnati. Know Nothing-
ism was being revived with a vengeance. And it knew
no geographical bounds, thanks to the able work of Mr.
Clarke and Mrs. Tyler. The order had spread so far by
September that the district attorney of Boston called on
the citizens of his town to codperate with him in opposing
it. Police officials were instructed to investigate it in Con-
necticut. Detroit prohibited the showing of a Klan film
in the city. The Chicago city council barred the Klan
from the Illinois city. The Federal Government took
cognizance of the existence of the Klan and Department
of Justice agents made an investigation which resulted in
a Congressional inquiry into its operations. The MayorNEO-KU-KLUX 253

of Louisville, Kentucky, denounced the order and forbade
its meetings. The prosecuting attorney of Michigan de-
nounced it and warned the students of the university in
that State not to join it. The Governor of Missouri con-
demned it. The Director of Public Safety in New Jersey
denounced it. The Cleveland, Ohio, city council opposed
it. The Governor of Wisconsin condemned it. A wave
of opposition to the Klan and all its works was spreading
throughout the nation. ,

The New York World, one of the country’s leading |
journalistic crusaders, launched a campaign against the ‘a
Klan, and sent out staff men to gather up evidence
against it. Their inquiries showed that from October,

1920, to October, 1921, the Klan was guilty of four kill-

ings, one mutilation, one branding with acid, forty-one hy
floggings, twenty-seven tar and feather parties, five kid-
napings, forty-three persons threatened or made to leave |
town, fourteen communities threatened by warning post-
ers, and sixteen parades of masked men with warning ||
placards.

It will be noted that the New York World’s figures
show four killings attributed to the Klan during the
twelve months’ period. The record for lynchings during
that year was 64, of whom 5 were white men. It is hardly
necessary to say that this compares favorably with the :
100 lynchings in 1908, 107 in 1901, 122 in 1897, 200 in
1893 and 255 in 1892, years in which the Ku Klux Klan
did not exist. It might be said, then, that in spite of the
W orld’s disclosures, the Klan, as a menace to America so
far as homicides were concerned, was a small matter com-We 254 THE CHANGING SOUTH

pared with the lawlessness of mobs that had no fra-
| ternal identity.

| Early in September, 1921, the New York World
: brought charges of disorderly conduct against Clarke and
|

us ME tra ll ili ia Salbenigibnaspgptarananee 1
= .- =

Mrs. Tyler, and an unsuccessful effort was made to indict

them. At the same time dissension broke out in the

Klan’s own ranks, and in December of the same year four

grand goblins of the Atlanta branch of the order de-
manded the removal of Clarke, who now was known as

| the Imperial Kleagle. Simmons, however, removed the
pa) goblins and to show his confidence in Clarke placed him

in supreme command for several weeks.

hel Opposition to the order continued. The United Mine
} Workers of America passed resolutions barring their
workers from Klan membership. Rabbi Stephen S. Wise,

in a Jewish New Year’s sermon, denounced it. And about

this time a Congressional investigation of the order got

under way, in which some interesting testimony was ob-

tained from the Imperial Wizard, Col. Simmons. The

| Imperial Wizard denied his order was a lawless organi-
zation and insisted that it was not patterned after the

Klan of Reconstruction days. Briefly, he held that Ku
| l | Kluxism, as now constituted, stands for 100 per cent.

Americanism, meaning, from his standpoint, an American-
ism that incorporates white supremacy, Protestantism, na-
tivism and Christianity, so called.

In December, 1921, there were wholesale resignations
in the Klan’s official ranks; dissension became rife, and
170 deposed Klansmen filed a petition in Atlanta for a
receivership for the order. About this time the National

ec ealNEO-KU-KLUX

Unity Council was organized in Chicago to fight the order
on a national scale. Its activities, however, were confined
to broadcasting anti-Klan literature and investigating out-
rages attributed to the hooded band.

During the year 1922 the Klan’s influence and strength
were mercurial. There was, however, no evidence of
violence on the order’s part, to any serious degree, save at
Mer Rouge, Louisiana, where several killings were staged.
The Mer Rouge incident attracted nation-wide attention
and resulted in the conviction of about thirty members of
the local Klan. In 1922, Mrs. Tyler, following an at-
tempt on her life and repeated attacks against her charac-
ter, resigned. In an annual convention in Cincinnati, the
American Federation of Labor opposed parades of masked
bodies, obviously aiming at the Klan. The flogging of a
Negro occurred in Arizona, and a constable was killed in
California. Both outrages were attributed to the Klan.

The order, this year, showed noticeable political influ-
ence in Florida and Georgia, and in New York and, no-
tably, in Connecticut. President Harding, in a personal
letter toa Mrs. F. L. Applegate, expressed disapproval of
the order. The lady had hardly received his letter before
word was broadcast in the newspapers that a prominent
doctor had been flogged by a masked band in Illinois.
About this time the Rev. R. W. Mark, pastor of the Third
Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, N. J., announced in his
pulpit that he would prefer the Klan any day to the
Knights of Columbus. In Arkansas the Klan endorsed a
candidate for Governor. In Texas it was a factor in the
State primary.au

WS SE lil tela si Sibel egpireoea

ayes

fe eS

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256 THE CHANGING SOUTH

In 1923, ridicule by the press and denunciations from
pulpits and platforms had driven the Klan into more or
less inactivity. Then, too, there was a reorganization.
Hiram Wesley Evans, a dentist, succeeded Col. Simmons
as Imperial Wizard in December, 1922, and the organiza-
tion at once grew more conservative under his administra-
tion. Evans, a native of Alabama, had received his
education at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, where con-
servatism reigns more or less in so far as Protestantism is
concerned. It is noteworthy that Evans is a member of
the church of the Disciples of Christ, a denomination
which, while it has subscribed to the orthodox doctrines of
the evangelical churches, has stressed the ideal of Chris-
tian unity. One could hardly be an ardent member of
such a church and practice the outrageous intolerance
which was the purpose of Simmons and his associates in
the beginning.

So, while the Klan grew tamer in its activities, it grew
stronger in membership, in spite of the attacks on it by
the press, pulpit and platform, and by the year 1926 it 1s
estimated that it had 2,500,000 enrolled members. To-
day the Klan is not looked upon seriously as a menace, and
its opponents are more given to ridiculing it and laughing
at its antics than to becoming disturbed over its existence.
It is interesting to note that in the Spring of 1927 the
New York World, one of the order’s staunchest oppo-
nents, rebuked the authorities of a New York borough for
refusing to let the Klan take part in a parade with other
fraternal organizations. The World probably had come
to realize that a mountain had been made out of a mole-NEO-KU-KLUX 257

hill in so far as the likelihood of the Klan’s ever destroy-
ing real American institutions was concerned.

In the South the Klan is not taken seriously to-day.
The leading newspapers there have opposed it vigorously,
including such dailies as the Atlanta Constitution, the
Memphis Commercial-Appeal, the Richmond dailies, the
Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, the dailies in Columbia and
Charleston, South Carolina, the larger dailies in North
Carolina and the News in Birmingham, Alabama. In
practically every Southern State are to be found one or
more newspapers which have fought and are still fighting
the Klan, when opposition to it is found necessary.

Occasionally disorders occur. Now and then there are
kidnapings and floggings, which invariably are attributed
to the Klan; but when the activities of the Klan are com-
pared with the lawless acts of lynching mobs, the Klan 1s
far from being the menace that it has been pictured. I be-
lieve that as time goes on and as the South receives into
its community life more of the real American outlook,
and as the South comes more and more to see that the
protective zgis of the Federal Constitution is designed for
no special group of Americans, it will think less and less
of the Klan.

To-day the membership of the order is confined more
or less to the ignorant classes of white men in the South.
Protestantism has played a strong hand in promoting its
interests, and this is particularly true of the Methodists;
but the Protestants cannot be blamed for its depredations.
It is the life of Protestantism, in its most ignorant form,
to condemn and oppose the Catholic and the Jew, so thatss each aah olin Salanatap garam

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a a on a SES ye ener eg ne ae da

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258 THE CHANGING SOUTH

it was but a natural consequence for it to be in sympathy
with the new Klan. Moreover, the Klan of to-day pro-
fesses to stand for law enforcement, which means that it
stands, outwardly at least, for the prohibition laws. At
the same time it can safely be said that there are as many
users of liquor in the Klan ranks as there are out of at.
In any event, the tenets of the Klan are so closely allied
with those of the fundamentalists in the Protestant ranks,
that one should not be surprised to see Methodist, and
sometimes Baptist, brethren of the cloth allying them-
selves with pillow cover, nightgown and fiery cross.

Ku Kluxism is, as its critics have maintained, un-Ameri-
can in nearly all its aims and purposes, when Americanism
is considered in the light of a citizen’s equal rights under
the Constitution, regardless of race, religion or color. But
the same thing might be said of certain kinds of Protes-
tantism which exist in America to-day, particularly in the
South.

In 1915, Col. Simmons started a movement which un-
doubtedly has had a remarkable growth; but, 1 believe
that in time his work will have turned out to be a service
to America, because it has done more than probably any
other movement, since the days of the Know Nothings, to
reveal the ugliness of Protestantism and nativism as they
have been practiced in the South. For many years re-
ligious and political bigotry were confined more or less to
the South; but thanks to Simmons and his able henchman
and henchwoman, Clarke and Mrs. Tyler, he was able
to lay this bigotry right at the feet of the people of otherNEO-KU-KLUX " 259

sections of the country where they were able to see at first
hand. The result was inevitable.

The Klan now has a large membership; but it has little
or no influence at this writing. And I believe that in a
few years it will be so ridiculed and discredited that it will
exert no more power in Southern or American society than
Chinatown or the Black Hand.a
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CHAPTER XVII

THE TARIFF

Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s observation on the tariff
problem, when he was Democratic candidate against James
A. Garfield in 1880, applies to the Solid South to-day as
forcibly as it would have applied to the colonies had he
uttered it when Congress was in session in 1789-1791 and
passed our first tariff laws. General Hancock was cred-
ited by the Republicans with having said, “The tariff is a
local issue”; but what he really said was that “the tariff
question is a local question,” meaning that different sec-
tions of the country had an unequal interest in the enact-
ment of the tariff laws. The garbled statement, however,
was broadcast by his political opponents in an effort to
show that General Hancock knew as much about tariffs
as Thomas Jefferson knew about the modern airplane;
and Garfield’s victory may be attributed in part to this
notion among the electorate.

But in so far as the South was and is concerned the
General was correct. Among the most humorous pas-
sages in our Congressional records are those pertaining to
the debates on the tariff in the session of 1789-1791. It
was the beginning of what now has become a familiar
story,—the cry of the manufacturing States for protec-
tion. At that time, as now, Pennsylvania, New York,

Massachusetts and Connecticut were the manufacturing
260THE TARIFF 261

 

States which were insistent upon protecting their “infant
industries.” But sectionalism then had not become so
alive, so the tariff debate was drawn down purely to a
matter of economic, rather than political, interest.

Had a Ring Lardner or an Irvin Cobb reported the
proceedings in Congress in 1789-1791 concerning the tar-
iff, we doubtless would have had one of their most laugh-
able sketches. For example, the representative from Penn-
sylvania proposed protection for the steel industry which
had but recently been established in that State, but the
representative of South Carolina protested that “the
smallest tax on steel would be a burden on agriculture.”
The Pennsylvania representative also advocated a duty on
beer, declaring that the brewing interests, both in Phila-
delphia and New York, “were highly deserving of en-
couragement.” Malt liquors, he argued, were less intoxi-
cating than rum, and as an element of diet were far pref-
erable. The growers of hops and barley did not object,
but some of the Southern States that exchanged some of
their goods for outside beer vigorously objected. The
chandlers of Philadelphia and of Roxbury, Mass., had
brought the manufacture of wax, spermaceti, and tallow
candles to such a degree of perfection that they expected
in a few years to provide for the needs of the Western
Hemisphere, so they sought protection against wholesale
importations from Russia and Ireland. It was argued
that candles might eventually be made in America
“cheaper than could be imported if a small encour-
agement was held out to them since raw materials were
to be had in abundance.” But the representative from

ae262 THE CHANGING SOUTH

South Carolina again protested. He declared the protec-
tion would work a hardship on the users of candles.

Connecticut asked that ships’ anchors be protected.
These were being made at Litchfield. And Massachusetts
asked for a protective duty on nails. Her representative
naively declared that, “In winter, and on evenings when
little other work is done, great quantities of nails are made
by the children; perhaps enough might be manufactured
in this way to supply the continent, since the business could
be prosecuted in a similar manner in every State exerting
equal industry.” The Southerners, however, protested
that such duties would work hardships on the men who
were building houses and ships.

The leather industry, then as now, was centered in
Massachusetts, and it had been developed also in Con-
necticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Mary-
land, so protection was asked by these States on leather.
In the South, however, where hides were tanned for ex-
portation and only the coarsest shoes were made for plan-
tation laborers, such duties were felt to be a burden.

Looking back from this distance, it is amusing to recall
that when Virginia asked for a protective duty of two
cents a bushel on coal, as the result of opening mines near
Richmond, the manufacturers of Pennsylvania protested
that the duty would be a tax on fuel! When the protest
was made coal had not been discovered in Pennsylvania,
and since that memorable session the Pennsylvanians have
eaten their words in more ways than one!

I have reviewed enough of the Congressional session
of 1789-1791 to show that General Hancock was alto-HCE ECO EE Ee

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

THE TARIFF

   

263

gether correct in his conclusions, and that primarily the
tariff question in this country was, as it is between the
North and South to-day, a conflict of interest between
producer and consumer. Consider for a moment Lou-
istana’s attitude toward the sugar tariff. But during and
following the Civil War the tariff question became almost
as big an issue as the question of slavery; and to-day the
Southern States, as a whole, while adhering to the free
trade or revenue tariff, as opposed to protection, for sen- at
timental and political reasons, are beginning to change fr
their views for economic reasons. i

Sentimentally the South is opposed to the protective
tariff because it is an outgrowth of the operations of the
radical measures of the Republican Reconstruction Con-
gress, and the political opposition of the South to protec-
tion constitutes one of the main differences between the al
Republicans and Democrats to-day. South Carolina still |
recalls with pride how she nullified the tariff act of 1832
and thereby nearly precipitated a civil war, and this epi- : |
sode, coupled with the fact that South Carolina looks upon |
anything connected with the Republican party as evil,
probably would prevent that State from advocating pro-
tection even if such a policy favored the commonwealth
economically.

At this juncture it is not amiss to analyze briefly just
what tariff protection as favored by the Republican party
means, and as opposed by the Democrats signifies. Pro-
tection, as sponsored by the Republican party, so arranges
the rates of duty on importation as to make their cost to
the consumer equal to or greater than the cost of similar

————

pa— ~
—

—_

   
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
  

264. THE CHANGING SOUTH

domestic products; and the advocates of protection argue
that protection compels foreigners to pay 4 part of our
taxes; that without it we would have to give up manufac-
turing and take up agriculture; that the absence of protec-
tion would mean that the labor of this country would have
to compete with cheap labor abroad; that investments at
home are encouraged by protection; and that competition
between home manufacturers will keep down prices.

Against this argument the Democratic party, adhering
generally to the principle of a tariff for revenue only,
holds, in effect, that first a nation should devote itself to
industries which are natural to it; that if other nations
can produce articles cheaper than we can, it is unnecessary
national extravagance to waste strength that could more
profitably be devoted to other pursuits; and that, above
all, protection benefits only a minority of the nation at
the expense of the large majority. Added to this is the
insistence by the Democrats, since the World War, that
the protective tariff retards the payment by other nations
of their war debts to this country.

It cannot be denied that the Democrats have a good
deal of soundness as well as justice on their side, from a
purely political standpoint; and I use the term political
here in its highest sense. But the Democratic party 1s
made up of human beings, and human beings now, as al-
ways, are guided more or less by their individual wants.
So, when the Southern Democrats learn, to a convincing
extent, the truthfulness of General Hancock’s famous
philosophy, one of the old political barriers between the
North and South will have crumbled away.THE TARIFF 265

Meanwhile, the Democrats have but one period in our
history to which they can point as an example of the
soundness of their doctrine. Protection, to use an his-
torian’s phrase, has since the year 1882 been “trium-
phant.” And the only time when we really had a tariff
for revenue only, or what amounted almost to free trade,
was when the famous bill of R. J. Walker was passed in
1846. Walker was Secretary of the Treasury throughout
Polk’s administration. He financed the war with Mexico,
and drafted the bill in 1849 for the establishment of the
Department of the Interior. In 1845 he prepared a treas-
ury report in which he attacked the protective theory
which is considered by some as comparable in genius and
insight to Hamilton’s famous “Report on Manufactures,”
favoring protection. The “Walker Tariff” of 1846 was
based on this report. It was the nearest approach to a
free trade policy that the United States has ever had. Its
aims were simply to meet the expenses of government,
and so eliminate entirely the principle of protection. It
was successful as a revenue measure and remained in force
for fifteen years, or until 1861. Ina report, issued in De-
cember, 1846, which to-day would be considered amazing
by the more vigorous advocates of protection, Secretary
Walker said:

“We are beginning to realize the benefits of the new
tariff. . . . By free interchange of commodities the for-
eign market is opened to our agricultural products, our
tonnage and commerce are rapidly augmenting, our ex-
ports enlarged and the price enhanced; exchanges are in
our favor, and specie is flowing within our limits. The

i antl

AUUOUUAI LULL ELeoe erSi

poet ei Ane ee Se re

   

266 THE CHANGING SOUTH

country was never more prosperous and we have never
enjoyed such large and profitable markets for all our
products. . . . New manufactories are being erected
throughout the country, and still yield a greater profit in
most cases than capital invested in other pursuits.”

There have been times since the Civil War when Dem-
ocratic stump orators referred to the Walker tariff as up-
holding their doctrine; but Walker’s name is no longer
heard; and the Democrats have never had a chance, since
the Civil War, to approach anything resembling the
Walker tariff. The Walker tariff provided for an aver-
age rate of 251% per cent., and the nearest thing to it was
the Democratic Wilson bill, passed in 1894, which pro-
vided for an average duty of 37 per cent. To-day pro-
tection provides for average duties of 50 per cent., and
this figure probably will be exceeded if the Republicans
maintain their power in Washington.

Until the outbreak of the Civil War the tariff question
was predicated solely on local interests much after the
way in which these interests were disclosed in the Con-
gressional session of 1789-1791, although the principle
of a tariff for revenue only and a policy verging upon free
trade had been adopted more or less by the Democratic
party. In the national convention of the party in 1856
Buchanan was nominated on a platform demanding free
trade; and in 1857 a bill was passed enlarging the free
trade list on the Walker tariff and lowering the average
duty to about 20 per cent. In 1856 and 1857, however,
it should be remembered that the Democratic party wasTUAALTTAPAUTAATARULTTTUAA TPR TAARO LATTA ATTACERURAEUTARERUUTORURTATATTATAAURUUTARARTORTRAARRAAO RIOD ES

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

tHE TARIEE 267

not an organization confined to the South alone. It was
just as potent in the North.

But after the outbreak of the war the Republican party
was forced to adopt drastic measures to enable the admin-
istration to prosecute the war, and one of the first things
done was the passage of the Morrill Act raising the tariff
of 1857 one-third. The tariff again was increased in 1862,
and in 1864 a joint resolution in Congress raised the tariff
50 per cent. for a period of sixty days, and this later was
extended to ninety days. In 1865 and 1866 the expenses
of the war made greater demands and further increases yi
were made. The Government gradually was moving into
a policy of protection from which it later learned
that it was well-nigh impossible to quit. In 1867 the
Wool Growers’ Association met at Syracuse, New York,
and formed an alliance and asked for and obtained an in-
crease in the tariff on wool. Since then the wool growers | ;
have never wanted for tariff protection, and its bulletins
and data on tariff problems are used as guides to-day by |
Republican statesmen whose responsibility it 1s to make up
the administration’s tariff schedules. Between 1867 and
1882 little or no tariff action of any consequence was taken
by the Republicans; but in 1882 the protective movement
became stronger, and that year marked the beginning of
what was to become the present tariff policy of the Re- a
publican party, allying the party irrevocably with the so- |
called business or manufacturing interests of the country. )
The strange thing about the movement was that it was not
followed as a piece of political strategy, but grew out ofeT

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   

268 THE CHANGING SOUTH

war necessity and became a Republican fetish because of
that fact.

Inasmuch as protection was an outgrowth of the Re-
publican party’s prosecution of the Civil War, it naturally
became anathema to the Southerners. They no longer con-
sidered the tariff as solely an economic problem. They no
longer viewed it in accordance with local self-interests as
had been the case in 1789 and 1791. Protection became a
hated thing because it was what they considered to be the
bastard child of the Reconstruction Congress,—and a
bastard child it remained to the South until within the
last five years or more.

While the Southerners are reluctant to drive out of
their hearts the traditional hate for a thing which had been
devised by the monstrous Reconstruction Congress, eco-
nomic conditions, nevertheless, have been forcing and are
continuing to force them to change their minds about the
tariff in different ways, according to local interests. Some
sections of the country where a protective tariff would
be as beneficial as it appears to be to New England man-
ufacturers, have fought against the theory as valiantly
and vainly as the Russian communists in recent times have
fought against the inevitability of capitalism.

To-day the Solid South slowly but surely is moving
into a position where it is ready to surrender one of its
old war hatreds. Brave and full of fortitude, and for
years romantically prepared to starve rather than give an
‘nch more to Yankee principles than the surrender at
Appomattox forced them to do, the Southerners have
begun to learn that romance is one thing and businessTTTLATUTTNTT TATA ATTA A RRRLULERCUETUPLEEERURTRERAURARAAARHUO RUGS HASLER EES

 

       
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

THE TARIFF 269

is another. The Southerners are as human as the North-

erners, and it is but human to want to prosper. So it is

that to-day one sees the Solid South crumbling a bit in its

attitude toward the tariff. She is breaking down under the

influence of her infant industries. Cotton mills that rival

or exceed those of New England; iron factories, com-

parable in many ways to those in Pennsylvania; phos-

phate mines, and petroleum wells, not to mention Lou-

isiana’s acre after acre of sugar cane, not only are not

averse to protection, but are seen actually clamoring for

it! The tariff, at last, 1s coming into its own again as “ay

purely an economic problem which applies to the coun-

try asa whole. It is no longer a subject of sentimental

prejudice in the South,—and yet, in the 70’s and as late

as the 90’s there were Southerners who would have cut a

off their right arms rather than plead for or be allied with |

“Yankee protection.” | :
As things now stand, the Southerners, as members of

the Democratic party, continue to favor a tariff for rev- 3

enue only as against protection because such an attitude is '

a part and parcel of their sentimental tradition. But as

the South expands industrially, in the same measure the |

South actually will lean toward protection. It must be

confessed, of course, that the interests in the South that

favor protection are scattered more or less. These inter-

ests are now to be found in Louisiana where sugar is

grown, in the Carolinas where textile mills have been es-

tablished as branches of New England mills, and the

iron and steel industries in Northern Alabama. But the

South does not intend to stop expanding, and it would notSo er aaah eh NT LN NaI, i

 

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270 THE CHANGING SOUTH

be wild to predict that in another quarter of a century the
Southern States no longer will be content to accept a
“tariff for revenue” in the national Democratic platforms.

Some inkling of how individual Democratic leaders are
beginning to see the handwriting on the wall is to be
found ina letter written in 1927 by William G. McAdoo,
a native of Georgia, to Richard H. Edmonds, of Balti-

more, in which he said, in part:

“A tariff based on economic grounds is justifiable,
whereas a tariff based upon a system of political rewards,
or for the purpose of political advantage, cannot be jus-
tified. The Republican party has given us always the
latter kind of legislation, and while I admit that certain
economic advantages that ought to be secured in any tariff
are embraced in the political tariff, yet if the political ele-
ment were removed the economic advantages would be
greater.”

It is no heresy to say that Mr. McAdoo voiced a grow-
ing sentiment among Southerners to-day. Huis statement,
of course, was that of a politician who was trying to admit
a truth without appearing to admit it. It cannot be denied
that the Republican tariff embraces “political rewards”’;
but by the same token, it is not unreasonable to suggest
that manufacturers in the South would be no more back-
ward about participating in the rewards than the manu-
facturers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Manufac-
turers, like Chinamen, are alike under their shirts,
whether they live above or below the Mason and Dixon
line.iste ' i ain aa ai Tene
MTTTTTT RATATAT TAT ATTA TTA LU TTATATATTR TT TTT TART TATA TAU TR TATRATTURUAERHORORTTDOORALTATUAOTTATORORTORRTARAOROED)

 

THE TARIFF O71

Some Southern business men,—not engaged in manu-
facturing,—argue that the South will never accept the
protective tariff as projected by the Republicans, and
point with pride to the Underwood tariff of 1913. This
tariff, drafted by Senator Oscar Underwood, of Alabama,
lowered the duties in the Payne-Aldrich law on an aver-
age of 11 per cent., placing the duties largely upon lux-
uries, and abolishing the protective rates on nearly all
articles. A Southern editor, high up in Democratic party
circles, declared that the Underwood tariff bill was “per-
haps the most scientific measure of the kind ever framed,” HN
and added that, “it produced big revenues, it ‘protected’ |
no special interests, and it was not discriminatory to any
section. The schedules were fashioned to encourage
American industry, and American agriculture, and at the
same time not to impose undue exactions upon consumers. | |
The farmer to-day,—especially the cotton producer,—is
feeling severely the pinch of the Fordney-McCumber
tariff law.” !

This sounds convincing enough, but the editor failed to
observe that the Underwood tariff law contained pro-
visions for the collection of income and corporation taxes
to make up for an estimated $96,000,000 deficit; and such
taxes are as vigorously disliked in the South as they are in
the North.

It is noteworthy that the South, according to the census t,
of 1920, produces practically all of this country’s cotton ' |
and cottonseed products, peanuts, sulphur (three-quarters |
of the world’s output), bauxite, phosphate rock, Fuller’s
earth, turpentine and resin and carbon black. Now the272 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Fordney-McCumber tariff law provides duties on various
kinds of cotton cloths and on cottonseed oil. It also de-
mands a tariff on peanuts and peanut oil and on sugar and
some of its by-products, so that with the duties on metals
and manufactures of metals, the Republican tariff actually
gives benefit,—if it gives benefit to the North, as the
Southerners claim,—to a large portion of the Southern
States, as well.

In the circumstances the South, with the inevitable in-
dustrial expansion which lies before her, unquestionably,
as the years pass, in spite of her hate for anything tainted
with the “Yankee” label, is likely to ally herself on the
side of protection for her own economic good. Asa mat-
ter of fact, it would be a bit of fine strategy politically for
the Southerners to demand a protective tariff that would
be designed for the benefit of the nation as a whole, and
not for political favoritism or party advantage; and such a
tariff, the more alert business men and manufacturers in
the South are beginning to see, is needed as long as the
Northern business interests persist in having protection.

The time is not far off, I believe, when the tariff will
not be an issue between the North and the South. Econo-
mists may not agree on the relative merits of protection,
a tariff for revenue only and free trade, but nevertheless,
the tariff promises to be a dead issue in so far as it in-
volves the old-time sentimental prejudice which has kept
‘t alive between the Southerners and their neighbors north
of the Mason and Dixon line, since the Civil War.URTUUTTTTETTAUATOTTTA NARA AUEETULOROTTETRRLUOUUETEAEAOUEUCAAAORRRRULRADRORERLALUQCRURLEGUOCRERRAOUOUEEAEL ER

CHAPTER XVIII

ECONOMIC PROGRESS

The economic progress and industrial growth of the
South are primarily due to two important causes: cotton
and railroads. A great deal has been said and written
about the importance of cotton, but I believe a trained
economist would attribute to the railroad expansion in the
South since the Civil War most of the credit for the
South’s economic development. While cotton is and has
been one of the South’s chief commodities, and while
the Southern States possess a wealth of raw material in
and on their soil, these commodities, to use the triteness of
a statistician, could not be utilized for man’s purposes
without the necessary transportation,—transportation to
bring needed materials to the South with which to de-
velop its resources, and transportation with which to carry
the South’s products to their markets.

Among the many anecdotes about Abraham Lincoln 1s
one which concerns a conversation between the Emanci-
pator and Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Lincoln was arranging for the transportation of Union
troops to the South and sent for Scott. Together they ex-
amined a railroad map, and the President was astonished
to find that all the great lines, at that time, ran east and
west. ‘Transportation southward, he learned, amounted
Whereupon Scott observed, “Mr.
273

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274 THE CHANGING SOUTH

President, if the railroads had run North and South, there
would have been no war.”

Scott probably was wrong in believing there would have
been no war, because transportation would never have
solved the slavery question; but it would have solved
many of the problems which confronted the South in the
days that followed the war. At the same time, the South
was not, as Scott’s observation would indicate, without
railroads. On the contrary, more mileage of railroads
was constructed in its borders between 1850 and 1860 than
by the New England and Middle Atlantic States com-
bined. In 1850 the South had 2,335 miles of railroad,
and New England and the Middle States 4,977. By
1860 the mileage in the South had been increased to
10,713, while the New England and Middle Atlantic
States had increased theirs to but 9,510. From 1860 until
a year or more before the World War the railroads of
the South expanded rapidly, tapping every source of min-
eral and soil supply in the region; and in 1925 the South-
ern carriers were reported to have led all the lines in the
Union in the earnings on their investments, most of them
obtaining 6 per cent., while the railroads of the East
earned but 5.19.

In the circumstances the railroads in the South not only
have been the chief factors-in the economic and industrial
progress of the section, but they have done much to heal
the breach between the South and North. Naturally, they
have been the means of bringing Northern capital into the
South. They have been responsible for the erection of

factories and industrial plants throughout the region,MTUAVLTTTU THON ATTACH TURAN TERA ARETUAT THUR EAEATAAATAORREURTAAEET OR TEAUATERAAULAEAIRRET RATERS ALOE A EORO

ECONOMIC PROGRESS 275

financially supported by Northerners; and consequently,
they have been indirectly the means of bringing to the
South the latest modern methods of business and enter-
prise, not to mention able Northern business and profes-
sional men, whose talents, together with those of the
Southerners, have been responsible for the South’s eco-
nomic growth.

As the great wealth of mineral and soil resources of the
South were discovered, and as the railroads extended their
lines into these rich regions, the South gradually grew
away from its dependence upon cotton. That commodity,
however, unquestionably was the saving of the South in
the first years after the Civil War. Between 1865 and
1880 the cotton business had been developed to such an
extent that by the last-named year 16,000 persons found
employment in the Southern cotton mills, and their prod-
uct was nearly one-fourth that of New England. This
gave an impetus to the region’s industrial growth which
carried it into other and larger channels of activity; and
to-day the South is second to none in her capacity for sup-
plying raw materials and manufacturing cotton products.
Within the last decade she has taken away the cotton man-
ufacturing industry from New England.

While cotton was making some of the Southerners rich,
the coal and iron deposits of the Appalachian range were
being exploited with the latest kind of machinery. The
phosphate beds of Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee
were being opened for the preparation of fertilizers.
Large fruit orchards were being planted in Florida; and
in Louisiana and Texas the swamp lands were beingStn

east te: ATR SS a {

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276 THE CHANGING SOUTH

drained and converted into rice fields which in time be-
came more profitable than those in South Carolina.

Economically, the South for the first fifteen years after
the Civil War pulled itself up by its own boot straps.
And it was not until the Southerners themselves had re-
vealed the industrial potentialities of the South that the
Northern capitalists took an interest in the region. North-
ern capitalists in those days did not spend their money in
enterprises for the mere fun of it. Perhaps they have
changed in this respect, as their Winter sojourns in Florida
indicate; but not in the days when the South was recover-
ing from the blows of the Civil War.

Statistics are prosaic, but it is not amiss to list the prod-
ucts which are supplied by the South for the needs of the
nation,—and the world,—in percentages of one-third or
more of the supply of the United States. This will give a
better idea than any other how the Southern States have
advanced economically since the Civil War, thanks to the
enterprise of the Southerners themselves and the financial
help, in many cases, of Northerners, not to mention the
important help of the railroads.

According to the latest reports, the South to-day is pro-
viding 100 per cent. of the country’s bauxite, Fuller’s
earth, turpentine and resin, sugar cane, and peanuts. It is
furnishing 99 per cent. of the country’s sulphur and phos-
phate rock. It is providing 93 per cent. of the country’s
cane syrup and sweet potatoes. It is furnishing 92 per

1Pp. 18 and 19, Blue Book of Southern Progress for 1922, published
by the Manufacturers’ Record.MUTTUTATANATTAUATOUAETETTUT ANA TTATAT TTA TREC TRANG AEREEEAAOAUTTORURRANATULEREEAAAAUREEREARRUSRELEREERRAAOOY 2

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

ECONOMIC PROGRESS He]

cent. of the country’s crude barytes. It is providing 90
per cent. of the country’s aluminum and its winter and
early spring vegetables. Eighty per cent. of the coun-
try’s carbon black from natural gas comes from the South.
And it is furnishing the country as follows:
Eighty per cent. of the country’s rice; 75 per cent. of
the natural gasoline; 70 per cent. of the grain sorghums;
66 per cent. of the commercial fertilizers; 61 per cent. of
the cabbage; 60 per cent. of the country’s natural gas and
graphite; 57 per cent. of the country’s petroleum; 51 per
cent. of the mica; 50 per cent. of the country’s butter, AN
lumber and quartz; 48 per cent. of the asbestos; 46 per
cent. of the peaches; 45 per cent. of the country’s lead;
42 per cent. of the chickens and zinc; 40 per cent. of the
asphalt and feldspar; 37 per cent. of the swine; 36 per
cent. of the corn and honey; and 33 per cent. of the coun- | |
try’s eggs, pyrites, talc and soapstone, and cattle. |
In addition to the above, the South is furnishing 26 per
cent. of the country’s coal, 12 per cent. of the pig iron 1 |
and ro per cent. of the iron ore. Also it is furnishing one-
fourth of the nation’s citrus fruits, berry crop, apples,
sugar, milch cows, lime and mineral water.
It is not difficult to see why the railroads in the South
are doing a better business than those in the North and
East. These materials and products have to be hauled to
the markets, and the larger markets are to be found out- i
side the South, including the markets in this country and
abroad. In this connection one of the strangest things
about the economic growth of the South is the failure of: - = -
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278 THE CHANGING SOUTH

the Southerners to make Norfolk, Virginia, one of the
leading seaports in America, if not in the world, what with
the rich feeding area it has in the Southern States.

Since the year 1921, the South has made tremendous
strides in highway construction, and this is important be-
cause the highways are being used more and more for the
truck transportation of freight. This transportation, in
some sections, has seriously affected the business of the
railroads, and certain small lines, particularly the spurs,
have been forced to discontinue their service. How seri-
ously trucking will affect the carriers in the future remains
to be seen, but indications are, at this writing, that the
progress of the South is such that the railroads and the
trucks both can do a big business.

Estimates show that in 1921 the Southern States spent
approximately $150,000,000 on highway construction.
This amount was doubled for the year 1925, and, at this
writing, more money is being applied to the building of
new roads. Some of the States have resorted to large
bond issues. North Carolina is a notable example. Other
States are adopting the pay-as-you-go plan, as in Virginia,
which, it is held by those who advocate it, relieves future
generations of financial burdens. Under the bond issue
plan, however, North Carolina has outstripped her sister
State, Virginia, by a large margin in road building, and
to-day boasts of the finest highways in the land. Virginia
is building slowly and in a few years ought to have a fine
system of roads, comparable to her excellent highway
which now runs down the Shenandoah valley.

The railroads and highways naturally are drawing thou-PURTTTATTRA ATTA ATTN TTTATATOTEAT TATA TTARTTOTTTT TTT CHUATTROREROTTOUTTUT TERR TINO UTRAUTTASTRAA TER LTAOGT ROPE CLR

      
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

ECONOMIC PROGRESS 279

sands of travelers to the South, so that such States as
Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and, in recent times,
Mississippi, are the gathering places for thousands of
tourists. Florida is leading all Southern States in the
tourist business. These visitors are factors in the indus-
trial progress of the South, because they interest North-
ern capital in Southern enterprises and in Southern possi-
bilities. All this, together with the initiative of the South-
erners themselves, has made the section one of the most
progressive economically in the last twenty years. The

population growths in the leading Southern cities indicate ‘{ \ |
the widespread business activities in the region.

I have stated that the enterprise of the Southerners
themselves has had much to do with the South’s progress,
and this leads me to the Chamber of Commerce and serv- ry
ice clubs, notably the Rotarians, in the South. How are re
they contributing to its growth and progress? | |

The answer is not an easy one. At the outset, I wish to
say that I have neither Henry Mencken’s unfavorable ||
opinion of the Chamber of Commerce, nor Sinclair
Lewis’s burlesque notions of the Rotary Club. There is
considerable good to be found in both organizations. But
whether the chambers of commerce, the boards of trade,
and the service clubs as such have really contributed to the
growth and progress of the South is questionable.

A chamber of commerce, as every one knows, is a sort
of publicity bureau for a municipality. It engages in the
business of “boosting the town,” and to do this success-

fully it usually hires a trained booster as a secretary. Not
many years ago there appeared on the American scene a

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280 THE CHANGING SOUTH

school for commercial secretaries in which the students
were trained in all phases of the technique of boosting.
In addition, the United States Chamber of Commerce has
sponsored young men who are termed experts in various
fields of endeavor, such as wholesale and retail merchan-
dising. I mention these experts because they play an im-
portant part in the work of the chamber of commerce sec-
retary.

The commercial secretary has a twofold job. He must
boost the town, and he must squeeze enough blood out of
the local business turnips to pay his salary. It 1s but nat-_
ural, then, for him to be constantly up and doing. He is
perpetually mapping out drives for the old town. He is
persistently reminding the citizenry that a town is not
better than its individuals, and that not one, but all, must
put their shoulders to the wheel, and shove the old burg
onto the well-known map. To say that his duties make
him as busy as a poor widow with a dozen children, 1s put-
ting it mildly. He must keep his eyes on council, or on
the city commission, or the mayor, as the case may be. He
must hold up for the gaze of all prospective manufactur-
ers, wholesale merchants, et cetera, in other lands, the
inviting swamps and empty lots around the town where
great plants and factories might be built, and along which
the railroads might build spur tracks, and which the tax
assessors might overlook, for a year or two after the
visitor arrives to do business.

The chamber secretary, of course, is an advertising
genius. He must discover a fitting phrase or slogan
to drive home the idea that his town is the only town inECONOMIC PROGRESS 281

the State,—or in the world. “What Bingville makes,
makes Bingville,” he will tell the world.

Moreover, he must organize boosting trips. The pack-
age binders and spellbinders must link arms and go into
other sections and tell the boys that they will be treated
like brothers, if they will come to Bingville to do their
trading. Long, tiresome, sweaty journeys are taken to
“bring Bingville to the people of the Valley.” And the
chamber secretary carries the largest megaphone.

Unquestionably these activities do some good, if it is
considered a good thing to bring more factories and more
customers to a town. But there is a question as to just
how much good a chamber of commerce does. In the
first place, every city of size in the South to-day has a
chamber or a board of trade, with a wild-eyed secretary
whooping it up. Doubtless, some wandering factory-site
seeker does land in town to look the possibilities over, and
doubtless he is dined,—and perhaps wined,—by the sec-
retary and his associates, and this may influence him into
planting a shoe factory on the creek or in building an evil-
smelling chemical plant on the river, where even more
evil-smelling employees from Northern tenement sec-
tions will come to sweat, eat and sleep. But I wonder
whether the commercial secretary has really advanced the
interests of the South, when it is considered that outside
business interests are intelligent enough, in any circum-
stances, to discover a factory site without assistance. I may
be wrong, but I believe the chamber of commerce, in the
South, particularly, has made more ineffectual noise than
anything else. To its credit, however, it must be said,

PETER282 THE CHANGING SOUTH

that it has promoted interests of the town within the
town, by seeing that foolish laws are not passed by the
city legislators and that good laws are passed, and by
getting behind the municipal authorities in the perform-
ance of their proper duties, and shaking a club at them
when they do not perform rightly.

The truth probably is that the railroads have expanded,
the highways have been built, skyscrapers have been
erected, plants have been established, and churches, homes
and schools have been constructed, without the builders
knowing, more times than not, that the little secretary 1s
swallowing cough drops and yelling his head off at the
citizens to be up and doing.

All service clubs, like the darkey in the coon song, look
alike. The Rotary Club, however, is the aristocrat of
them all. Its leitmotif is Service with a capital “S.” The
carping critics in the Land of Intelligentsia have almost
torn the little “Service” banner to threads. Nevertheless,
it still waves. It is but natural to think of the Rotary Club
in terms of back slapping, song singing and clownish
antics; but it must not be forgotten that Rotary, in each
community, is composed of the leading men in the profes-
sional and business circles. They are the men who, as the
chamber secretary would put it, are making the town what
itis. If they are a gang of morons, the town will be no
better than a village. But if they are up and doing fel-
lows, the town will be the best little old burg this side of
the Himalayas.

Broadly speaking, the typical Rotary Club consists of
two classes of citizens: wholesale and retail merchants,ECONOMIC PROGRESS 283

bankers and manufacturers in one group, and professional
men in the other. Asa rule the professional men, that is,
the lawyers, doctors and ministers, don’t care a hang
whether the town grows bigger or not, so long as the
country club is not disturbed. And the wholesale and
retail merchants, et cetera, don’t care a great deal
whether the town becomes bigger as long as there is no
competition that will interfere with their businesses. So
they naturally give their attention to “Service.” I believe
it is to their credit that they do try to promote square deal-
ing in business, although there is often no outward indica-
tion of this. It has been hinted that a Rotarian will take
as heavy a profit off a fellow Rotarian as he will off a
Kiwanian, and that’s saying a good deal! The Rotarians,
however, promote the welfare of boys and people in dis-
tress. Their work in behalf of boys, alone, justifies their
existence. They establish camps and schools for needy
boys and are behind such organizations as the Boy Scouts
and the Salvation Army. So they can be forgiven, in a
measure, for beating plates with heavy knives once a week
and yelling their heads off to a marching tune.

I do not believe I speak incorrectly when I say that the
Rotarian, as such, has done little or nothing in con-
tributing to the growth and prosperity of the South. This
does not mean, of course, that a Rotarian, in his individual
role, as a business man or a professional, has not played
his part in the South’s economic advancement; but the
average citizen is a far different animal behind an execu-
tive’s desk in the heat of a busy work day, from the genial
would-be Caruso, behind a hotel plate of indigestible

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284 THE CHANGING SOUTH

food, at the weekly Rotary luncheon. Rotary, it might
be said, has made a Jekyll and Hyde of many a large-
paunched gent who would be better off dictating letters
to his secretary about the latest shipment of lard.

The Southern Rotarian is not different from his brother
in the North. Indeed, it might be said that the typical
service club of to-day has done more to heal the wounds
of sectionalism than any other agency of its kind. Unfor-
tunately, the churches have not done as much. Consider
the Methodists, the Baptists and the Presbyterians. Long
before the Civil War they split over the slavery question
and have not got together yet. But a Rotarian belongs
to a brotherhood that is world-wide in its scope; and a
member of the club from Asheville, North Carolina, is as
welcome in Keokuk or in Edinburgh, Scotland, as he
would be in another Southern community. This spirit
undoubtedly has done much to destroy the South’s old-
time isolation. To-day the grandson of a Confederate
soldier whose idea of a Yankee was not unlike his idea of
a demon from hell, fraternizes with his Yankee brother,
calls him “Bill,” and wants to know when he will blow in
on the boys down South where he will be treated like a
member of the family. In the circumstances, the Ro-
tarians in the South can be forgiven for their clownishness.

One of the most important factors in the progress of
the South, next to the construction of railroads and high-
ways, has been the hydro-electric developments in many
parts of the South. The Southern States are rich in long
potent rivers, from which electric power can be obtained.
The result is that large transmission lines are being, andBIPEAUAOEReE Reset ee °
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ECONOMIC PROGRESS

have been, built, and these furnish power for industries
throughout the South, as well as for the towns and cities.
Some of the railroads have begun electrifying their lines,
and electric interurban lines are being built. If it is true
that the large electrical power plants in America are plan-
ning to establish a network of transmission lines which will
combine all the hydro-electric developments in the coun-
try, this will bring the Southern States even more out of
their past isolation.

During the past fifteen years Southern farmers have
learned a bitter lesson as the result of depending on one
crop, and this has been particularly true of the cotton
grower. In the seasons when the acreage was large, the
prices would fall, and then prices would rise after the
farmers inevitably had assumed that smaller acreages were
desirable. Suddenly it dawned upon them that the one-
crop idea was an unprofitable one; and so, in recent years,
they have turned their attention to diversification, with
the most gratifying results.

Southern agriculturists are now engaged in dairying, if
in the raising of poultry, in the breeding of livestock, in
the growing of fruits and vegetables and in the growth of )
foodstuffs generally. The result is that they have fared |
better. Unfortunately, however, they have been con-
fronted with a problem that has caused them losses in
many sections, namely, the problem of labor. In recent
years it has been well-nigh impossible to keep young white {\
men on Southern farms. Many of them would prefer to
engage in the gentle art of motoring or conducting for
street railway companies, to plowing and pitching hay,—

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286 THE CHANGING SOUTH

and who can blame them? And the exodus of farm lads
to the city is not confined to those who are detached.
Young men who would have opportunities to share in the
ownership of farms, through inheritance or through their
own enterprise, rush to the cities madly.

In spite of the labor problem, though, Southern agri-
culture is making rapid strides; and according to a recent
report was shipping 500,000 carloads of foodstuff alone
to feed the people of other sections of America. This
does not indicate that even those farmers who are most
hard-pressed are on the verge of starvation.

Agriculture in the South has been developed amazingly
by the State and Federal authorities, through their agri-
cultural experts. The States send out county agents to
instruct farmers who are willing to be instructed in the
latest methods of planting and harvesting and in the latest
agricultural methods generally. And what is more im-
portant, the Southern farmers are learning from experts
modern methods of marketing which are making their
products more profitable. An enterprising, business-like
farmer in the South to-day, who is willing to don overalls
and get close to the soil and not ride about his estate like
the “gentleman farmer” of old, has a better opportunity
to make money from the soil than he ever had before, in
spite of the cries for Government relief and in spite of the
complaints that come from the so-called “dirt-farmers”
from time to time.

In addition to the farm lands that now exist in the
South, it is estimated that the section has about 55,000,000
acres of “wet” land of high fertility, which if drainedECONOMIC PROGRESS

probably would place the South in the lead of all other
sections in the production of agricultural products. But
the South can be well content with what she has for a
while, if she will but use her possessions and potentialities
to the best advantage. She is quite capable, if she wishes,
of supplying the cotton and wool clothing for the whole
country and much of the world. It probably would be
safe to say that she is better off agriculturally than the
other sections of America, and this is remarkable when the
section’s struggles following the Civil War are considered.

To understand the place the Southern States have ob-
tained in the economic life of America, it is not amiss to
quote two paragraphs from a recent speech delivered by
Walter S. Gifford, president of the American Telephone
and Telegraph Company. Mr. Gifford said:

287

“The East and North are turning their eyes Southward
and are planning to pour many millions of dollars into
commercial and industrial projects to be located in the
South.

“And the South is grooming itself to meet this outpour
of money and this expression of confidence on the part of
Northern business men and large corporations and to ful-
fill every expectation. We are proud of the South and
are glad it is coming into its own. It holds the greatest
possibilities for development because of its almost unlim-
ited resources, and these are going to bring wealth and
prosperity in terms never before dreamed of by the most
enthusiastic.”

Mr. Gifford, who is a level-headed business man, has
hardly exaggerated the South’s economic potentialities./

|
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0 Se Ae Se

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288 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Statistics and tables unending could be cited to show the
part the Southern States are playing in the business life
of the nation. I believe, however, I have touched on
enough of the high spots in the section’s economic devel-
opment to show that the Solid South, phcenix-like, has
risen out of the ashes of war ruin and demolition, to an
astounding degree. Of course, the section has been aided
handsomely by its Northern neighbors. It has been aided
by the great railroads which traverse its plains and moun-
tains. Nevertheless, it is to the courage and enterprise of
the Southern people themselves and to the fact that the
section in which they live is so rich in those things which
provide the foods and comforts of man, that credit must
be given for the Southland’s amazing economic advance-
ment. Perhaps the tonic of economic progress finally will
relieve the South of that illness, sectionalism, from which
she has so long suffered, for as she advances materially,
she will forget the wounds of the past. As she becomes
more and more the great provider for the markets of the
nation, and of the world, she will give more thought to
being an integral portion of a great nation, rather than as
a nation within herself, as she has conceived herself to
be since Civil War days. This outlook, however, will
never come, in spite of the South’s material gains, until
she has gotten away from her religious and political soli-
darity; and when that day will come, if it ever comes, no
man, at this writing, knows.LPARARARREREAARAUARAAAOLAAARARAPARAROD LOLA AAEaaneaee

   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
    

CHAPTER XxX

THE FUTURE

In considering the future of the Southern States
which formed the Confederacy, four broad aspects must
be viewed, namely, the South’s economic progress, its re-
ligious progress, if any, its political progress, if any, and
its social progress. We have seen how the South has
advanced in an economic way to an amazing degree. In-
deed, the greatest concern a friend of the South might
have is that it will grow so rich materially in the next
decade or in the next twenty years that it will become as
colorless and uninterésting as the North. Struggles
against adversities inevitably make a people stand out in
nobility of character and heroism, as witness the South
for the first twenty years after the Civil War, and the
West, following the rush of the Forty-niners to the gold
fields. Affuence, on the other hand, breeds a new type
of people. In the very nature of things it makes them
lazy, lovers of luxury and finally caught with a discon-
tent that does not bring out the best sides of their char-
acter. It would be a pity, indeed, to see the South take
on the complacency, for example, that the idle rich in the if
Fast have assumed for more than a century, and yet, if
the South’s prosperity of the last two decades continues,

that inevitably is what lies in store for her.
289

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290 THE CHANGING SOUTH

The great railroad trunk lines which run up and down
and across the South not only have brought to the region
new factories and new blood, but have given to the terri-
tory visions that are not different in many ways from those
that the Easterners long have possessed. The Southerners,
as a result of their economic progress, are placing new
values on men and things. One example is the weighing
of social worth in terms of wealth. The time was, notably
in such States as Virginia and South Carolina, when char-
acter counted more than dollars. And while that time has
not passed altogether, even the people of Virginia and
South Carolina are getting away from it. A new order has
arisen, as the result of the new era of material progress.
As one old Southern gentleman put it a few years ago,
“The bottom rail is on top.” The people of the middle
and lower classes are in power; and aristocracy has taken
on a new meaning. The new aristocracy to-day is meas-
ured by the ability to make money and keep out of jail.
The old aristocracy, as an ideal, is as dead as ancient
Rome. As one of the chief results of the economic ad-
vancement of the region, the old South soon will lose its
identity, save in two things: religion and politics. The
South, as I have shown in previous chapters, is one with
other sections of America in most of its fashions and man-
ners. The old customs, and many of the old traditions,
in so far as individual conduct is concerned, are grad-
ually passing away. And when you add to this the fact
that modern methods of business and industry are in the
South as conspicuously as they are in the East, you areTEER LULL LU CeO Uc

  

THE FUTURE 291

confronted with a new South that is vastly different from
the South of even twenty years ago.

The religious aspect of the South’s future involves so
many intricate elements of human nature, and of human
passions, that it would be difficult to speculate with any
degree of accuracy on how Protestantism will influence the
coming generations of Southerners. The influences which
are likely to change the religious life of the region are the
rapidly growing means of transportation and communica-
tion, the increasing influence of the press and education.

Transportation and communication are bringing the
people in closer contact with other sections of America,
and with the other nations of the world. Moreover, it
is bringing more outsiders, with their vastly different
viewpoints, into the South. The newspapers, whose cir~
culations are expanding every year, are reaching the remot-
est spots in the South and are bringing new and potent
messages from the outside world. Even the fundamen-
talists are learning from the press that Darwin did not
actually say that man is descended from a monkey. And
now and then a Klansman learns the folly of being a
clown in a pillow cover and a winding sheet.

It was but a few years ago that Northerners were com-
miserating the South on her illiteracy. There is NO OC-
casion for that now, for the South is probably giving more
attention to the problem of education than any other sec-
tion in America. In 1924, according to preliminary bi-
ennial figures issued by the Federal Bureau of Education,
the Southern States spent for public education nearly

Pru SEAN DUAR EAS~ 1

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292 THE CHANGING SOUTH

$365,000,000, three and a half times the sum it spent for
public schools in 1914. When it is remembered that this
sum is about $150,000,000 or 70 per cent. more than the
United States spent for schools in 1900, one gets an ex-
cellent idea of how the South has awakened in regard to
education.

Meanwhile, more money is being spent for the enlarge-
ment and improvement of the universities and colleges.
The majority of these institutions, it is safe to say, are
as modern and liberal as the higher institutions of learn-
ing in the East and West. Inevitably they are exerting
an influence on the religious life of the South. And while
some States here and there are resorting to the ridiculous
ban on the teaching of evolution, are insisting that the
Protestant Bible be read in the schools, and are using doc-
tored histories, many of them are as modern in their
methods and outlook as the schools in the North. It is
reasonable to believe, then, that with the larger influence
of the universities and colleges, and the growing influence
of the public school faculties religion, in time, will be
practiced with more tolerance and open-mindedness. But
this will not come ina day. It must be a gradual process.

The political future of the South offers the most in-
teresting problem for students of history and for poli-
ticians. Since the Civil War, the South has been like the
poor relative who has come into the large family to make
her home. She is there, but that is all. Nobody pays any
attention to her, and she usually sits in the corner and
has nothing to say. The South has been the poor rela-
tive at the nominating conventions and in the national elec-THE FUTURE 293

tions for years, in so far as having a part in the choice
of candidates and measures were concerned. She has had
but two weapons, namely, the two-thirds rule and the unit
rule. On some occasions she has been able through these
rules to prevent nominations she didn’t want, but has
never been able to select the candidates she did want.
The question that has intrigued politicians in recent
years has been, “Will the Solid South ever break?” The
only sensible answer is that the day may come when she
will break, but it is not near at hand. I have tried to show
in a previous chapter the South’s attitude toward the
Negro problem. It should be remembered that the Re-
publican party in the South is composed largely of
Negroes, although the “Lily White” Republicans, in re-
cent years have barred the blacks from their councils. To
retaliate the Negroes in some States have organized what
they call the “Lily Black” Republicans. The Republican
party in the South also has in its ranks, here and there,
disgruntled former Democrats. A certain Virginian some
years ago was so deeply disappointed because he was not
nominated for lieutenant-governor on the Democratic
ticket that he turned Republican, and after he died all his
descendants became adherents of the party. Northerners
who have gone South to live usually are Republicans, and
are the best representatives of the party in the South, par-
ticularly those who hold high business and executive posts.
As long as the large Negro population remains in the
South as compared with the small number of Negroes in
the East and West, the South will remain solid politically.

Some years ago when the Negroes were emigrating to theee

Ce

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294. THE CHANGING SOUTH

industrial centers in the North in large numbers, a Re-
publican politician expressed the hope that enough
Negroes would go North to strike a balance, and that
then, he believed, the Solid South would break up politi-
cally. But the Negroes returned to the South where the
climate suited them better and where they liked the white
people better than they liked the Northerners who did not
understand them.

Twenty years ago it never occurred to a Southern
Negro to become a member of the Democratic party. The
story is told that when a Southerner asked his Negro
servant, “Joshua, why don’t you come over into the Dem-
ocratic party?” he replied, “Lawsy, Colonel, de Demo-
crats is gentmens, an’ I belongs whar dey ain’t none.”
But recently Southern Negroes have tried to join the
Democrats because they have received bad treatment from
their white brethren in the Republican ranks. So insistent
was a Texas Negro to join the party of Jefferson two years
aeo that when a law in the Lone Star State prohibited
Negroes from voting in the Democratic primary, he car-
ried his fight to the United States Supreme Court and the
tribunal voided the Texas law.

The Solid South will not break up politically until it 1s
certain beyond a peradventure of a doubt that the Negro
has no chance of obtaining political power in the section.
I have tried to show in a previous chapter how the Dem-
ocratic whites in the South bar Negroes from voting
through educational tests and other devices. But when
the Negro turns to the Republican white he receives noTTL LLL EL OCC TT EEG LU

  

THE FUTURE 295

better treatment. Indeed, he is more deeply offended be-
cause he looks upon the G. O. P. as the party of the
sainted Emancipator. When the door is shut in his face
by the “Lily Whites” he feels it far more keenly than he
does when the Democrats hold up their hands to check
his advances.

Inasmuch as the Negro every year is becoming edu-
cated in larger numbers, what assurance has the South
that he will not strive to obtain power, once he realizes
his political strength? Upon the correct answer to this
question depends the South’s political future. I do not
believe, as some Southerners do, that such issues as prohi-
bition, Catholicism or the tariff will cause the Solid South
to break politically. The South, it must be confessed, is
at this writing dry politically. Also it 1s overwhelmingly
Protestant. And it must be admitted that in a Demo-
cratic national convention the Southern delegation could
be counted on to fight vigorously and to the end, the as-
pirations of a “wet” or a Catholic, or both.

But this would not mean that the South would break
‘n the event a wet or a Catholic were nominated. All that
the South would demand of the candidate would be that
he must be a white man. And, in such an event, the South
would vote for a wet or Catholic nominee, as it has for
Democratic nominees since the Civil War. There would
be dissenters. There might be enough of them to create
a sizable third dry party in the South, but it would
amount to nothing on election day. The border States,
notably Kentucky and Tennessee, could not be counted

WEEEVERAUL ERTS CRUE OOOO RS)ws EE sci ie in i es elie pte lginireao

Se

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

296 THE CHANGING SOUTH

on, one way or the other. Their votes in the past have
been uncertain on less important issues than prohibition
and Catholicism.

One important thing to remember about the political
dryness of the Southern States is the fact that the people
of the South are as wet individually as the people in other
sections of the country. I have shown in an earlier chap-
ter how the larger cities are as wet as those in the North,
and how drinking is just as prevalent among the young
people in the South as in the North. It is reasonable to
believe, then, that the people, as a whole, and as individ-
uals, do not care a great deal about the dry laws, But it
must be admitted that the politicians, under the whip of
the Protestant hierarchy, profess dryness with a piety that
would have done credit to Saul after his conversion.

Save in the remote sections of the South where ig-
norance predominates, I believe there is becoming more
evident among the Protestant leaders a disposition to study
out the truth about Catholicism. The press and the nation’s
weekly and monthly periodicals are enlightening them,
in some measure, and they are learning that the Catholic
church in America to-day is a far different affair from the
church in the time of the Spanish Inquisition. It may be
a long time coming, but I believe the day will come when
even a really educated Methodist bishop in the South will
recognize the fact that the Pope has no intention of sneak-
ing in the back door of the White House and setting up
a super-government. Already the better educated Prot-
estant laymen are recognizing the idiocy of such a notion,
so that in the event a Catholic should be nominated by theTHE FUTURE 297

Democrats for President, I do not believe the event would
cause the Solid South to break. There would, of course,
be some wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth
among the bishops and superintendents in the Methodist
ranks and among some of the divine doctors in the Bap-
tist ministry, but generally speaking the Southern elec-
torate would support the nominee,—providing, as I have
said, that he is a white man.

In the larger business circles, particularly in the manu-
facturing spheres, Southern opinion on the tariff question
is changing, as I have noted. But this, I believe, will not
affect the political solidarity of the South. There are
more ways than one of killing a political cat, and no group
of business men in the country 1s more adept at killing
political cats than the manufacturers, wherever they may
be found. Those manufacturers in the South who believe
in a protective tariff can very easily call themselves “Pro-
tective Democrats.” Consider how the good Democrats
in 1924 deserted Mr. Wilson on the League of Nations
issue, but to all intents and purposes were still with him.
“Protective Democrats” in the South could hardly wan-
der away from the fold further than did the “referendum
Democrats” in 1924. It was fortunate, at any rate, that
Mr. Wilson was not alive to witness the machinations of
the advocates of a “referendum.”

Some years ago the Baltimore Evening Sun staged a
prize contest involving the question, “What is the differ-
ence between a Democrat and a Republican?” A woman
‘n Baltimore gave the winning answer. She said that, “A
Democrat is one who believes the Republican party is

TTT LLU LULL OCC TTR TEE

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
   
   

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298 THE CHANGING SOUTH

crooked and a Republican is one who believes the Demo-
cratic party is crooked. Both are right.” There are many
persons in the South to-day who see the two parties as
this woman does. They recognize the fact that essen-
tially and fundamentally there is really no difference be-
tween America’s two dominant parties. There is in the
South a sizable body of independents who are disgusted
with both parties. But this must be borne in mind: the
Southern independents invariably vote the Democratic
ticket, or they do not vote at all. They would prefer
doing one or the other to voting the Republican ticket,
simply as a matter of sentiment, and to adhere to lifelong
traditions.

Social conditions in the South are becoming more and
more like those of other sections of America. Petty and
major crimes are on the same scale in the more populous
centers. Violation of the prohibition law is not solely a
Southern practice by any means. Nor is murder confined
to the South, as the daily record of Chicago discloses.
But the South still bears the reputation of being the lead-
ing section in the number of lynchings. These crimes are
the works of lawless mobs; and although the number of
lynchings has decreased within the past ten years, there
are still too many of them.

Mob psychology in the South is a far different kind of
psychology from that in the North. I was amused at
reading an editorial in the New York World in the Spring
of 1927 commending the heroism of a Gotham policeman
who “prevented” a mob of angry New Yorkers fromTHE, BULURE 299

lynching a Negro who had attacked a white man. The
cop would have had an entirely different problem to deal
with in the South. The mob in the South not only 1s
born of the anger and passion of the moment, but of a
lifelong tradition, and that tradition is that a Negro, or
a white man, must be punished forthwith when he com-
mits rape or murder, and particularly when the rape or
murder is of a heinous degree. Court trials and delays,
in the eyes of the lynchers, are too unsatisfactory.

Two things, and I believe those two things alone, will
prevent mob violence in the South. One is the gradual
education of the type of Southerner who takes part in
a lynching, and the other is a proper safeguard for a pris-
oner in the first place or the prompt action of the authori-
ties in the second. Such a law as Congressman Dyer pro-
posed would be as ineffectual in the South as throwing
snowballs at Eskimos. The Dyer bill provides for the
imposition of heavy fines upon communities and the pun-
‘shment of officials who permit mobs to seize prisoners. .

Twenty years ago men in high official life, such as the |
governors of States themselves, approved, more or less,
of lynching. All that has changed. The State and minor
authorities in all the Southern commonwealths are bent
upon maintaining order at all costs. Incidents in recent
years in such States as Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Mis-
sissippi and North Carolina have disclosed that mob vio-
lence will not be tolerated by the properly constituted. (|
authorities. And in States where the authorities are dis-
posed to be in sympathy with members of a mob, as re-

TE TU ee COUN UUUDUD CUCU Lo Lon-—

ee ome

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ee

300 THE CHANGING SOUTH

J

cently in South Carolina, the press in and out of the
South raise loud protests. These protests invariably result
in action being taken against the lynchers.

In the circumstances, I believe that this kind of law-
lessness, for which the South unfortunately 1s famed, will
be curbed in time by the Southerners themselves. Not
only moral and social but political and economic consid-
erations, will force them to prevent mob violence. More
often than not business interests are hurt by the actions
of lawless bands. And office-holding politicians are be-
ginning to realize that the thinking people in the South
will not retain in power an official who fails to act
promptly and justly when mob violence has been indulged
in.

The South to-day is under the spotlight of universal
gaze. Enterprising business and professional men from
other sections are turning their eyes toward her borders.
Persons who are seeking home sites in a land that has an
excellent year-around climate are beginning to move to
her mountains and plains. Even across the seas the South,
particularly Florida, is becoming known to the world.
The saga of Virginia, and of the South, is known to the
Mother Country through the prideful utterances of such
persons as Lady Nancy Astor, a native of the Southland,
who now sits in the British Commons.

Such a spotlight inevitably discloses the weaknesses and
the strength of the South. The world outside not only
is learning the potentialities and the mistakes of the sec-
tion, but the Southerners themselves are beginning to see
themselves as others see them. The process of improve-UUARERHAAAEREUGRASAMOEOARAROROMRAPANAARARSRAAATAAOEOROORARORAAROSGRO REE ES tome
-

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

PoE, BORO 301

ment must be gradual; but that conditions, religiously, po-
litically and socially, as well as economically, will
improve, is as certain as that the same conditions will
improve in America as a whole. Meanwhile the South
has many traits that other sections well might adopt. I
believe I am not mistaken in saying that her people are
the most warm-hearted in America. Not even the breezy
Westerners are more so. Her potentialities for greatness
and goodness exist in as large a degree as any other sec-
tion; and her capacity for heroism already is an established
story in the world’s literature.
But, I believe, provided the South does not succumb to
the crass materialism that has taken the blood and color
out of the East, the consummation of her future lies in
becoming a more integral part of the American scene.
Climate and terrain, as science long ago discovered, makes
peoples of different sections different in their customs and
manners; and because of her climate and her mountains
and plains, the South probably always will be different :
from the North and East.
But the fulfillment of her destiny lies in her becoming
a bit more American, in getting away more from the !
ancient intolerances and narrowness which have bound her |
so long. And when she has done this, I do not believe it 2
would be speculating too wildly to say that in some future :
day she might become as potent in guiding the destinies |
of the nation as she was before the Civil War. |

TTT LULL Ge CUCU ITIL LL PUTCO Ed ERRTE sci Sl ch ili lbs i bladed aig

see

     
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
    

APPENDIX
THE SOUTH IN 1928?

In facing the task of choosing a Democratic candidate
for the presidency in 1928, the Southern Democrats will
go to the party’s national convention with problems far
different from those which confronted them in 1924.
That year they were able, through the two-thirds and
unit rules, to prevent the nomination of Governor Alfred
E. Smith of New York, although they were not able to
force the nomination of their favorite, William G.
McAdoo, or of their favorite sons, Carter Glass and
Oscar Underwood.

In 1928, Mr. McAdoo will have faded from the scene
as a potential candidate. His most ardent supporters in
the South recognize the fact that he can never be nomi-
nated. All the political circumstances which could be
stacked against a Presidential aspirant are stacked against
the former Secretary of the Treasury. His services as
counsel for the oil interests are against him. His dryness
is not to the liking of the Northern and Eastern Demo-
crats. And his personality is strongly disliked by many
thousands of others.

While Mr. McAdoo’s star has descended, Governor
Smith’s has risen. Elected Governor of New York for
the fourth time, in 1926, and with a record of unusual

achievement as an executive and a leader, Mr. Smith 1s
302UURTA TERT ERAE RARER SEER RE EECA TATU SPER UR ESET EA CEOAASSEDPRADEOAORP RARE REAR ReO EN
ELE

     
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
   

THE SOUTH IN 1928? 303

to-day unquestionably the strongest leader Democracy
possesses. Southern Democrats recognize his political
eminence. ‘They recognize his ability to obtain votes.
They know, as much as many of them hate to know it,
that he is the one man in America to-day who can win a
Democratic victory if he receives solid Democratic sup-
port. Added to Mr. Smith’s support which he will re-
ceive from the large body of anti-prohibitionists, is a
growing conviction among Democrats, including some in
the South, that his affiliation with the Catholic church
should be no bar to his entering the White House. His
recent letter, printed in the Adlantic Monthly, in which he
set forth his status as an American citizen and as a mem-
ber of his church, has set at rest the fears that thinking
people in his party might have had. Save in the lower
reaches of the South,—and in some sections of the North
as well,—the Smith credo of American citizenship 1s
satisfying.
But the South’s opposition to Mr. Smith in the 1928
convention will be fourfold. And the Southern Demo-
crats will seize upon all of these or one or more of the
four reasons for opposing him, to defeat him in the con- (i
vention. Governor Smith will be opposed by the South-
ern Democrats because he is considered “wet,” because he
is a Catholic, because he is a member of Tammany Hall
and because he was born and reared in the wicked city
of New York. Those Southerners and those newspapers it
who may be satisfied with his credo of American citizen- |
ship will oppose him because he is wet. Or some of those
who are wet themselves will oppose him because he 1s

  

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304. THE CHANGING SOUTH

J

allied with Tammany, or because he is a New Yorker.
Above all, in spite of his promulgated credo of citizen-
ship, hundreds of Democrats in the South will oppose him
because of his religion. In their minds will remain the
belief, in spite of what Mr. Smith has said to the
contrary, that he will permit the Pope to dictate to him if
he ever enters the White House. And this belief, one
may rest assured, will be reénforced by the utterances of
the brethren, who see in the Smith credo a “mere attempt
to cover up his real tracks,” or the Pope’s tracks, as the
case may be.

So the Southerners will fight Alfred E. Smith in the
1928 convention to the last ditch. If worse comes to
worst they will be willing to accept the wet Governor
Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland in preference to Smith.
They probably would be willing to accept the irrepressible
and exceedingly wet Senator “Jim” Reed of Missouri, if
they found that they could block Smith with no other
man. They know they can never hope to stop him by
putting McAdoo against him again, so they are shelling
the woods and tramping the plains in search of a candi-
date who can make a decent stand against the New York
Governor.

The result is that dark horses and favorite sons will be
more plentiful in 1928 than they were in 1924. Some
Southerners are disposed to receive kindly the suggestion
of Northern Democrats that Owen D. Young be put for-
ward as the best candidate with which to defeat Governor
Smith. But Mr. Young, in the eyes of many South-
erners, who still retain the Bryan attitude toward Wallmanewolies " Wh wT TTTTIT
J na CELLET EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE EEE OE
7 ———— a i

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

THE SOUTH IN 1928? 305

Street and its subsidiaries, is too tainted with “big busi-
ness.” Besides they believe they have men in their own
borders who are as capable of administering the affairs of
the nation as Mr. Young.

Alabama, although in the grip of the political wing,
controlled by the present Governor, Bibb Graves, 1s hardly
likely to put Oscar Underwood forward again. However,
if the State puts any favorite son before the convention,
it will be Mr. Underwood, because there is no other man
in the State who could logically be nominated. Arkansas
has an able favorite in the person of Senator Joseph T.
Robinson and probably will present his name long enough
to make a suitable trade. North Carolina has an excep-
tionally able favorite son in the person of Governor Angus
W. McLean, and his name undoubtedly will be before the
convention until a suitable switch can be negotiated.
Down in Texas the youthful Governor Dan Moody’s
stock has risen considerably in recent months, and the
Texans unquestionably will advance his name until they
can find a suitable candidate.

One of the outstanding favorite sons from the South in
1928 will be Governor Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. At
this writing, indications are that he, and not Senator Glass,
will be put forward as the Old Dominion’s choice. For
the first time in several generations Virginia has an execu-
tive in this youthful governor who shows the fire and
ability of the Virginia statesmen of old. He is a fine
business man, enterprising and possesses a rare leadership
which he has exerted in behalf of many excellent govern-
mental and legislative reforms in his State. In his na-

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306 THE CHANGING SOUTH

tive commonwealth his stock has steadily risen, until now
he appears to be more popular than Senator Glass and far
more popular than any Governor Virginia has had in the
past fifty years.

In addition to Owen D. Young, who probably will be
advanced by Eastern friends, and “Jim” Reed who will
receive scattering support, the Southern Democrats will
be in the position to add to their favorite son list two out-
standing men in the Middle West, namely, E. T. Mere-
dith and Governor Vic Donahey of Ohio. Of the four
men, Young, Meredith, Reed and Donahey, the Ohioan
will be the most acceptable to the South because of his
dryness.

In the circumstances the stage is set, I believe, for a
free-for-all fight in the Democratic convention in 1928
that will transcend the 1924 gathering in vigor and bitter-
ness. The Klan issue is not as strong now as it was in
1924, but it is not dead by any means. Nor is the religious
issue eliminated from Democratic councils. Unfortu-
nately, this issue is destined to tear and wreck the party
for many election years to come. And the prohibition
issue is perennial. Perhaps it will never die. It is safe
to say, at any rate, that it is destined to be the chief issue
before the 1928 convention, and is likely to affect the re-
sults of the election in so far as the Democrats are con-
cerned. So, if Alfred E. Smith, a “wet,” a Catholic and
a member of Tammany is nominated, the nation may look
for dissension in Democratic ranks again, probably as great
as that which appeared in 1924 as the result of Demo-NETUAURANAEAAUOTOUEETANN DATA OPATANSERROUELELUATER ELPA ED

     
   
   
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   

THE SOUTH IN 1928? 307

cratic alarm in some quarters over the so-called “La Fol-
lette menace.”

But this should be borne in mind: the dissension will
not be among the Democrats in the South. I firmly be-
lieve that in spite of any opposition he may have in the
convention, Governor Smith, if nominated, will receive
the support of the Solid South. There may be in the
South, particularly in such States as Alabama, South Caro-
lina, Georgia and Mississippi a strong falling off in the
Democratic vote, but I believe every Southern State
would enter the Smith column.

Such an event would appear strange in view of the fact
that preconvention and convention opposition to Smith
would be stronger among Southern delegates than among
those in the North, East and West. But, as I have at-
tempted to show in previous chapters, the South would
be almost as reluctant to desert Democracy as it would be
to desert Protestantism,—and that is saying a great deal.
So long as the Democratic nominee is a white man, the
South would remain loyal to Democracy. This would
mean that if Governor Smith is nominated in 1928, his
fitness as a candidate would be justified in the many art-
ful ways which politicians and spellbinders have of justi-
fying such things after the smoke of nominating battles
have cleared away. Politics, after all, rarely follows the
paths of reason, justice and consistency. Consider, for ex-
ample, the attitude of a Pennsylvania newspaper toward
Senator-elect William S. Vare. In Philadelphia a Re-
publican newspaper was so outspoken in its opposition to

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308 THE CHANGING SOUTH

Mr. Vare during the primary campaign that it unhesitat-
ingly condemned him as a misfit who should never be
seated in the Senate. But when Vare had been nominated
and was opposed by an able Democrat, this same news-
paper supported Vare. Such a course is what the poli-
ticians call “political expediency”; and Madame Roland’s
famous observation about the crimes that have been com-
mitted in liberty’s name apply most eloquently to such
a philosophy.

“After all,” the Southern Democrats will say, in the
event Mr. Smith is nominated, “the man is a good Demo-
crat,—and he’s a white man. We’ve never deserted the
party since Lee’s men went home in rags, so we won’t
do so, now.” But it will not be altogether a matter of
sentiment with the Southerners. As much as they may
hate the term, “expediency” also will guide them. They
know they cannot afford, after a long and successful
political fight for white supremacy in the South where
the Negro population predominates, to permit the South
to be split up politically. The mercurial actions of the
border States in elections’ are not really important; but
it would be a serious thing for the traditionally Demo-
cratic States in the South to desert the party which has
meant so much to them for many years. Governor
Smith’s wetness, his Catholicism, his nativity in wicked
New York and his affiliation with that questionable organi-
zation, Tammany, would not justify a surrender to the
Republicans in the South, which, in time, might mean a
surrender to the Negroes.

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THE SOUTH IN 1928: 309

support from the bosses of the Democratic political ma-
chines in the South. And Tammany itself is no stronger
than these organizations. The bosses of these machines
include some of the outstanding citizens in the counties,
towns, cities and States. Senators, governors, State off-
cials, city and county officials, legislators, et cetera, all
belong to these machines which have been in power so
long that it would be difficult to blow them out with a
blast of dynamite. Inasmuch as their political bread and
meat depend on the maintenance of Democracy, they
naturally will make it their business to see that the Demo-
cratic nominee, whether he be Alfred E. Smith or the
illustrious Mr. Chaplin, of Hollywood, receives the solid
Democratic vote in their bailiwicks.

Consider the case, say, of a Senator, and I know one
who has probably the strongest and best organized polit-
‘cal machine in the South. Such a man is not going to
permit the wet issue, the Catholic issue or any other issue
to prevent him from returning to the Senate, or what 1S
almost as important, to cause his grip on the machine to
weaken. The result is that if Governor Smith should be
nominated, this Senator would send out instructions which
would reach the remotest points in his State to the effect
that the Democratic Presidential nominee must be sup-
ported at all hazards. And he would be obeyed. There
might be some dissenters, but not enough of them to affect
the Democratic majority. Each wheel within the ma- (
chine is dependent upon another and larger wheel; and
the time was, not so many years ago, when a State boss
and his subordinates could count with certainty on de-

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310 THE CHANGING SOUTH

livering a victory-winning block of votes to the candidate
who had been chosen by the machine leaders.

I do not wish to give the impression that there are no
independent voters in the South. There probably are
hundreds of them; but as I have said before if they go to
the polls they invariably let sentiment guide them and
vote the Democratic ticket, or they do not vote at all.
Moreover, the independents in the South, as everywhere
else in America, are unorganized. If they should be-
come organized, as they sometimes are into reform groups
whose chief reason for existence is a grievance, they soon
take the réle of an ineffectual third party. And third
parties somehow or other do not survive in the South.
They meet with the fate that such organizations have suf-
fered throughout the history of the Republic. Without
effective leadership and without organization, the inde-
pendent voters in the South have no power whatever and
therefore no voice in the choice of men and measures.
The result is that any opposition they might show to Gov-
ernor Smith would be ineffectual against the determina-
tion of the machine bosses to give the New Yorker sup-
port.

There are probably many persons in the South to-day
who, although they are vigorously opposed to Smith’s
nomination, not only realize that he has a good chance of
being nominated, but recognize his ability and integrity.
Such persons naturally are adjusting their minds and
tastes more and more toward Smith. Carter Glass is an
example. He is ardently dry, and he is strongly op-
posed to Tammany. But recognizing the possibility thatEURETREURATAPERUREORSRAGHOARORGREORRANRARRLGRONERPUONTOORVORAESORURUOTORONTATOTIOCUTIATITAITATATROTOPIRUOTART RUE D SS pia

    
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
   

THE SOUTH IN 1928? 311

Smith may be nominated, he is preparing himself for the
eventuality. In a public statement early in 1927 he de-
clared that he believed Virginia would support Smith if
he is nominated. In 1924 when McAdoo was at the
height of his popularity, such a statement would have
been received in the Old Dominion as heresy. Glass and
other Southerners of intelligence see the handwriting on
the wall. They know down in their hearts that McAdoo
is as dead politically as the well-known king. And they
know that Smith is stronger to-day than any Democrat
has been since the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson was not
as strong in 1912. He won asa dark horse after Bryan’s
memorable attack on Champ Clark. And Wilson would
never have been elected if Roosevelt had not split the
Republican party. Before the Democratic convention in
1912 Wilson was hardly known outside New Jersey. To-
day Smith is nationally known; and he is admired by Re-
publicans as well as Democrats in his own State.

I believe Smith has an excellent chance of being nom-
inated in 1928. All indications point to his selection at
this writing. He will not be supported by the South in
the convention; and if he is nominated it will not be
until after one of the bitterest fights the Democrats have
ever staged. In the event he is nominated, the South, I
believe, will support him solidly, possibly with some fall-
ing off in the Democratic vote. So a Democratic victory
in 1928, in the event of his nomination, depends upon
whether the dry and anti-Catholic Democrats in the East,
the Middle West and the West support the New York
executive as loyally as the Solid South would support him.

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