But there remains a body of men in the South who, not prosperous in other industries, still make the Negro a sort of industry: they live by exploiting Negro prejudice. They prevent the expression of new ideas and force a great people to confine its political genius to a worn-out issue.
Roosevelt Democrats Down South
Talking with all classes of white men in the South, I was amazed to discover how many of them had ceased to be Democrats (in the party sense) at all, and were followers in their beliefs of Roosevelt and the Republican party. Many of them told me that they wished they could break away and express themselves openly and freely, but they did not dare. A considerable number have ventured to vote the Republican ticket in national elections (especially on the free-silver issue), but few indeed have had the courage to declare their independence in state or local affairs. For the instant a rift appears in the harmony of the white party (and that is a better name for it than Democratic) the leaders talk Negro, and the would-be independents are driven back into the fold. Over and over again leaders with new issues have endeavoured to get a hearing. A number of years ago the Populist movement spread widely throughout the South. Tom Watson of Georgia, Kolb of Alabama, Butler of North Carolina, led revolts against the old Democratic party. By fusion with the Republicans the Populists carried North Carolina. But the old political leaders immediately raised the Negro issue, declared that the Populists were encouraging the Negro vote, and defeated the insurgents, driving most of their leaders into political obscurity. Now, I am not arguing that Populism was an ideal movement, nor that its leaders were ideal men; I am merely trying to show the cost of independence in the South. A number of years ago Emory Speer, of Georgia, now Federal Judge, ran for Congress on an independent ticket. His platform was “The Union and the Constitution, a free ballot and a fair count.” The inevitable Negro issue was raised against him, it was insisted that there must be no division among white people lest the Negro secure the balance of political power, and Speer was finally defeated. He became a Republican and has since had no influence in state politics.
Upon this point an able Southern writer, Professor Edwin Mims of Trinity College, N. C., has said:
“The independents in the South have to face the same state of affairs that the independents of the North did in the ’80’s—all the better traditions connected with one party, and most of the respectable people belonging to the same party. Just as George William Curtis and his followers were accused of being Democrats in disguise and of being traitors to the ‘grand old party’ that had saved the Union and freed the slaves, and deserters to a party of Copperheads, so the Southern independent is said to be a Republican in disguise, and is told of the awful crimes of the Reconstruction era. When all other arguments have failed, there is the inevitable appeal to the threatened domination of an inferior race which is not now even a remote possibility.”
As a result of this domination of a worn-out issue, political contests in the South have ordinarily concerned themselves not with stimulating public questions, but with the personal qualifications of the candidates. The South has not dared to face real problems lest the white party be split and the Negro voter somehow slip into influence. A campaign was fought last year in Mississippi. Of course the candidates all belonged to the white party; all therefore subscribed to identically the same platform—which had been prepared by the party leaders—so that the only issue was the personality of the candidates. Let me quote from the Mississippi correspondent of the New Orleans Times-Democrat, April 29, 1907:
The only “issue” ... is the personality of the candidate himself. The voter may take the speeches of each candidate and analyse them from start to finish, and he will fail to find where there is any difference of opinion between the candidates on any of the live questions of the day which are likely to affect Mississippi. He must, therefore, turn from the speeches to the candidate himself for an “issue” and must take his choice of the several candidates as men, and decide which of them will do most good to the state and be the safest man to entrust with the helm.
Negro Holds Democratic Party Together
I am speaking here, of course, of the Negro as a dominant issue, the essential element which holds the Democratic party together and without which other policies could not be carried or candidates elected. Vigorous divisions on other issues have taken place locally within the lines of the Democratic party, especially during the last two or three years. The railroad and trust questions have been prominently before the people in most of the Southern states. During his long campaign for governor Hoke Smith talked railroads and railroad influence in politics constantly, but in order to be elected he raised the Negro question and talked it vigorously, especially in all of his country addresses. It is also highly significant that the South should have taken so strong a lead in the prohibition movement, although even this question has been more or less connected with the Negro problem, the argument being that the South must forbid the liquor traffic because of its influence on the Negro. No states in the Union, indeed, have been more radical in dealing with the trust question than Texas and Arkansas; and Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina have been the scenes of some of the hottest fights in the country on the railroad question. All this goes to show that, once freed from the incubus of the Negro on Southern thought, the South would instantly become a great factor in national questions. And being almost exclusively American in its population, with few rich men and ideals of life not yet so subservient to the dollar as those of the North, it would become a powerful factor in the progressive and constructive movements of the country. The influence of a single bold man like Tillman in the Senate has been notable. In the future the country has much to look for from the idealism of Southern statesmanship.
Stifling Free Speech