[495] Rutherford, op. cit., p. 104.
[496] Ibid., p. 110. This quotation from Muzzey’s is incorrect in Truths of History. Muzzey, eulogizing the Southern women, adds this statement: “It is impossible for the student of history today to feel otherwise than that the victory of the South in 1861-1865 would have been a calamity for every section of our country. But the indomitable valor and utter self-sacrifice with which the South defended her cause both at home and in the field must always arouse our admiration.” Muzzey, An American History, pp. 372-373.
[497] Rutherford, op. cit., p. 104. In her chapter entitled “Reconstruction was not just to the South. This injustice made the Ku Klux Klan a necessity,” Miss Rutherford, pursuing a policy peculiarly inharmonious for a writer of Truths of History, allowed herself again to become negligent as to the accuracy of her quotations. Citing Muzzey as one authority for the title of her chapter, she ascribed the following statement to him: “The rules of these negro governments of 1868 was an indescribable orgy of extravagance, fraud and disgusting incompetence—a travesty on government. Unprincipled politicians dominated the States’ government and plunged the States further and further into debt by voting themselves enormous salaries, and reaping in many ways hundreds of thousands of dollars in graft. In South Carolina $200,000 were spent in furnishing the State Capitol with costly plate glass mirrors, lounges, armchairs, a free bar and other luxurious appointments for the use of the negro and scalawag legislators. It took the South nine years to get rid of these governments.” In reading Muzzey’s book, the reader cannot but wonder at the reason for the inaccuracy of the quotation, for precisely the same end would have been accomplished had Miss Rutherford quoted verbatim: “The Reconstruction governments of the South were sorry affairs. For the exhausted states, already amply ‘punished’ by the desolation of war, the rule of the negro and his unscrupulous carpetbagger patron was an indescribable orgy of extravagance, fraud, and disgusting incompetence,—a travesty on government. Instead of seeking to build up the shattered resources of the South by economy and industry, the new legislators plunged the states further and further into debt by voting themselves enormous salaries and by spending lavish sums of money on railroads, canals, and public buildings and works, for which they reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in graft.” In a footnote Muzzey adds the following from which Miss Rutherford has culled the idea for part of her quotation: “The economic evils and social humiliation brought on the South by the Reconstruction governments are almost beyond description. South Carolina, for example, had a legislature in which 98 of the 155 members were negroes ...; in one year $200,000 was spent in furnishing the state capitol with costly plate-glass mirrors, lounges, desks, armchairs, and other luxurious appointments, including a free bar for the use of the negro and scalawag legislators. It took the Southern states from two to nine years to get rid of these governments.” See Rutherford, op. cit., p. 87; Muzzey, op. cit., pp. 387-388.
[498] Horton, Rushmore G., A Youth’s History of the Great Civil War in the United States from 1861-1865 (New York, 1866).
[499] Lee, New School History of the United States, p. 261.
[500] Ibid., p. 357.
[501] Evans, Lawton B., The Essential Facts of American History (Benjamin H. Sanborn and Company, 1920); Evans is from Augusta, Georgia. Thompson, Waddy, History of the People of the United States (D. C. Heath and Co., 1919); Chambers, Henry Edward, A School History of the United States (American Book Co., 1895); Stephenson, Nathaniel Wright, An American History (Ginn and Co., 1913, 1921); Estill, Harry F., The Beginner’s History of Our Country (Southern Publishing Co., Dallas, Texas, 1919).
[502] Alabama, James and Sanford’s American History; Arkansas, Evans’ The Essential Facts of American History; Florida, Stephenson’s An American History; Georgia, Evans’ First Lessons in American History and Evans’ Essential Facts of Lessons in American History; Louisiana, Estill’s Beginner’s History of Our Country, Evans’ Essential Facts of American History and Stephenson’s An American History; Mississippi, Estill’s Beginner’s History of Our Country and Mace-Petrie’s History of the People of the United States; Texas, Cousin and Hill’s American History; Virginia, Andrew’s United States History. These data were secured from a questionnaire. North Carolina reported state adopted textbooks but did not name them; South Carolina failed to report.
[503] Evans, The Essential Facts of American History, p. 364.
[504] Stephenson, An American History, p. 399.