Generally speaking, the South is a law-abiding section. This is true even when the negroes are included, and as the prohibitory laws are enforced more strictly, it is becoming increasingly true. The chain gang which was so common years ago has been discontinued in hundreds of counties, chiefly for lack of convicts, though partly for humanitarian reasons. The offenses of the negro were, for the most part, petty larceny, gambling, and offenses against public order. Affrays are certainly less frequent since the spread of prohibition, and larceny seems to be decreasing, though statistics of crime are few and unreliable. The gambling is usually nothing more than "craps," or "African billiards" as they call it now. Among the whites, offenses against property are few. In many rural counties a white man is seldom charged with theft, fraud, or forgery. A white man is occasionally arraigned for "disposing of mortgaged property," or for malicious mischief, including the destruction of property.
The homicide rate, however, is high. Generally the figures given include the negro, and he is somewhat more homicidal than the white, but the white rate is among the highest in the world. Blood feuds actually exist in the Southern Appalachians, though perhaps their number is not so large as is commonly believed. The moonshiner's antipathy to revenue officers leads him to use firearms upon occasion, but homicide occurs also in intelligent communities where the general tone is high. Individuals of excellent standing in business or professional life sometimes shoot to kill their fellows and in the past have usually escaped the extreme penalty and often have avoided punishment altogether. It would seem that life is held rather cheaply in many Southern communities.
Until recently much of the South has remained a frontier, as some of it is to this day, and in frontier communities men are accustomed to take the law into their own hands and are reluctant to depend upon inadequate or ineffective police protection. Despising physical cowardice, the individual prides himself upon his ability to maintain his rights and to protect his honor without calling for assistance. Frontiersmen are quick to resent an affront, and when their veracity is impugned they fight. The word "lie" is not considered a polite mode of expressing dissent. All over the South, in every class of society, one finds this sensitiveness to an accusation of lack of veracity. Such a theory of life dies hard. The presence of a less advanced race is perhaps not conducive to self-control. The dominant race, determined to maintain its position of superiority, is likely to resent a real or fancied affront to its dignity. A warped sense of honor, a sort of belated theory of chivalry, is responsible for some acts of violence. A seducer is likely to be called to account and the slayer, by invoking the "unwritten law," has usually been acquitted. Such a case lends itself to the display of flamboyant oratory, and the plea of "protecting the home" has set many murderers free. Perhaps the South is becoming less susceptible to oratory; at all events this plea now sometimes fails to win a jury. Defendants are occasionally convicted, though the verdicts are usually rendered for manslaughter and not for murder.
Public sentiment is not yet ready, however, to declare every intentional homicide murder. Some point to the low rate of white illegitimacy as a justification of the deterring force of the "unwritten law," not realizing that such a defense it, really a reflection upon womanhood. Others allow their detestation of physical cowardice to blind them to the danger of allowing men to take the law into their own hands. The individualism of the imperfectly socialized Southerner does not yet permit him to think of the law as a majestic, impersonal force towering high above the individual. It is true that the Southerner is law-abiding on the whole, but he usually obeys the laws because they represent his ethical concepts and not because of devotion to the abstract idea of law.
There is danger, however, in the attempt to state dogmatically what the Southerner thinks or believes. There is much diversity of opinion among the younger Southerners, for many questions are in a state of flux, and there is as yet no point of crystallization. There is no leader either in politics or in journalism who may be said to utter the voice of the South. In the earlier part of this period Henry Watterson, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, spoke almost with authority. The untimely death of Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, deprived the South of a spokesman and he has had no successor. There is no newspaper which has any considerable influence outside the State in which it is published, and few have a circulation throughout even their entire State. There are several newspapers which are edited with considerable ability, on the political side at least, but none has a circulation sufficiently large to make it a real power. All are more or less parochial. The country papers, which are frankly and necessarily local, exercise more influence than the papers of the cities, though the circulation of the latter is increasing.
The Southerner is reading more than he once did. Some of the national weeklies have a considerable circulation in the South, and the national magazines are read in increasing numbers. Good bookstores are not common, for the people generally have not learned to buy many books since they have been able to afford them. The women's clubs, however, interest their members in the "best-sellers" and pass these books from one to another. Some members may always be depended upon to purchase serious books as their contribution to the club. The number of public libraries in the South is considerable, and the educational administration of several of the States is striving to put a well-selected library into every public school. ¹
¹ North Carolina has established over five thousand of these school libraries. The State pays one-third of the cost, the county one-third, and the patrons of the school the remainder. Additional volumes are furnished by the same plan.
The Southerner is not only reading more books, but he is also writing more. A man or woman who has written a book is no longer a curiosity. In the closing decade or two of the nineteenth century the work of a group of Southern writers led a distinguished critic to rank them as the most significant force in American letters. Such a high valuation of the writers of the present day could hardly be made, but there is a much larger number than formerly whose work is acceptable. Members of college faculties, and others, produce annually numerous books of solid worth in science, history, biography, economics, and sociology. Volumes of recollections and reminiscences interesting to the student of the past appear, and much local and state history has been rescued from oblivion. Some theological books are written, but there is little published on national questions. The output of verse is small, and few essays are published. As few Southerners are extensive travelers, there are necessarily few books of travel and description. Though most of the people live in a rural or semi-rural environment, very little is printed dealing with nature. There are many writers of fiction, though few can be called artists.
The New South is full of contradictions and paradoxes. It is living generations of social and economic changes in decades, and naturally all the people do not keep an even pace. One may find culture that would grace a court alongside incredible ignorance; distinguished courtesy and sheer brutality; kindness and consideration of the rights and feelings of others together with cruelty almost unbelievable. In some sections are to be found machines belonging to the most advanced stage of industry, while nearby are in operation economic processes of the rudest and most primitive sort. One who knows the South must feel, however, that its most striking characteristic is hopefulness. The dull apathy of a generation ago is rapidly disappearing, and the South lifts up its eyes toward the future.