Superintendent Cloud was handicapped, not only by his own incapacity, but also by the bad character of his subordinates, whom he appointed in great haste from the unpromising material that supported the Reconstruction régime. Many of the receipts for the salaries were signed by the teachers with marks, some being unable to write their own names. From the school officials he received inaccurate reports, and on these he based his apportionments, which were defective, many of the teachers not receiving their money. The county superintendents had absolute authority over the school fund belonging to their counties, and could draw it from the treasury and use it for private purposes nearly a year before the salaries of the teachers were due.[1751] Complaint was made that the black counties received more than their proper share of the school fund. In Pickens County the superintendent neglected to draw anything but his own salary, and a north Alabama superintendent ran away with the money for his county. Other superintendents were accused of scaling down the pay of the teachers from 20 to 50 per cent, and it was estimated that in some counties two-thirds of the school money never reached the teachers. There was no check on the county superintendent, who could expend money practically at his own discretion.[1752] Three trustees were appointed in each township by the county superintendent; these trustees, who were not paid, appointed for themselves a clerk who was paid, and these clerks met in a county convention and fixed the salary of the county superintendent.[1753]
The bookkeeping in the office of State Superintendent Cloud was irregular. Some of the accounts were kept in pencil, and for a whole year the books were not posted. Of $235,000 paid to the county superintendents only $10,000 was accounted for by them. In 1871, $50,000 or more was still in the hands of the ex-superintendents, and the state and the teachers were taking legal proceedings against some of them.[1754] Both sons of Cloud embezzled school money and fled from the state.[1755] Cloud receipted for one sum of $314 in payment for sixteenth-section lands. This he forgot to pay to the treasurer. He issued patents for 4000 acres of school land and turned into the treasury only $323. A township in Marengo County rented its sixteenth-section land; nevertheless, Cloud paid to this county its sixteenth-section funds. In 1871 an investigation of Cloud’s accounts showed that a large number of his vouchers were fraudulent, hundreds being in the same handwriting. He signed the name of J. H. Fitts & Company, financial agents of the University, to a receipt by which he drew from the treasury several hundred dollars to advance to a needy professor. He said, when questioned about it, that he thought he could “draw on” Messrs. Fitts & Company. It afterwards developed that he did not know the difference between a receipt and a draft. His accounts were so confused that he often paid the same bill twice. In 1871, when he went out of office, the sum unaccounted for by vouchers amounted to $260,556.37. After two years he succeeded in getting vouchers for all but $129,595.71.[1756]
In the black counties the school finances became confused, especially as the negro and carpet-bag officials tolled the funds that passed through their hands. At the end of 1870 the school funds of Selma were $40,000 short. It was found practically impossible to collect a poll tax from the negroes, the Radical collectors being afraid to insist on the negroes’ paying taxes. In Dallas County the collector refused to allow the planters to pay taxes for their negro hands on the ground that it would be a relic of slavery. If the negroes refused to pay, nothing more was said about it.[1757] In 1869 there were 200,000 polls and only $66,000 poll tax was collected, which meant that only 44,000 men had paid the tax.[1758] In 1870 Somers states that the insurance tax was $13,327, and the number of polls was 162,819. Yet from both sources less than $100,000 was obtained.[1759]
The Board of Education, according to the constitution, was to classify by lot before the election of 1870. But in 1869, when the matter was brought up, they refused to classify. Several vacancies occurred, and these were filled by special election. Consequently the Democrats in 1870 did not get a fair representation on the board.[1760]
Objections to the Reconstruction Education
The Board of Education had the power to adopt a uniform series of text-books for the public schools; Superintendent Cloud, however, assumed this authority and chose texts which were objectionable to the majority of the whites. This was especially the case with the history books, which the whites complained were insulting in their accounts of southern leaders and southern questions. Cloud was not the man to allow the southern view of controversial questions to be taught in schools under his control. About 1869 he secured a donation of several thousand copies of history books which gave the northern views of American history, and these he distributed among the teachers and the schools. But most of the literature that the whites considered objectionable did not come from Cloud’s department, but from the Bureau and aid society teachers, and was used in the schools for blacks. There were several series of “Freedmen’s Readers” and “Freedmen’s Histories” prepared for use in negro schools. But the fact remains that for ten or fifteen years northern histories were taught in white schools and had a decided influence on the readers. It resulted in the combination often seen in the late southern writer, of northern views of history with southern prejudices; the fable of the “luxury of the aristocrats” and the numbers and wretchedness of the “mean whites” was now accepted by numerous young southerners; on such questions as slavery the northern view of the institution was accepted, but on the other hand the tu quoque answer was made to the North. Consequently, the task of the historian was not to explain the southern civilization, but to accept it as rather bad and to prove that the North was partly responsible and equally guilty—a fruitless work.[1761]
Cloud, in his first report, admitted that the opposition to schools was rather on account of the officials than because the people disliked free schools. He further stated that the opposition had ceased to a great extent. There were many whites in the Black Belt who disliked the idea of free or “pauper” schools, and to this day some of them have not overcome this feeling. They believed in education, but not in education that was given away,—at least not for the whites. Each person must make an effort to get an education. However, they, and especially the old slaveholders, were not opposed to the education of the negro, believing it to be necessary for the good of society. In the white counties of north and southeast Alabama there was less opposition to the public schools for whites. But in the same sections schools for the negroes were bitterly opposed by the uneducated whites who were in close competition with them, for they knew that the whites paid for the negro schools, and also that, having a different standard of living, it would be easier for the negroes to send their children to school than for them to send theirs. In the Black Belt there were a few of these people, who disliked to see three or four negro schools to one white school, for here the number of the negroes naturally secured for them better advantages. The whites were so few in numbers that not half of them were within easy reach of a school. Whenever the numbers of one or both races were small, it was (and has been ever since) a burden on a community to build two schoolhouses and to support two separate schools, especially where the funds provided are barely sufficient for one.[1762]
The Question of Negro Education
Before the negro question in all its phases was brought directly into politics, and before the Radicals, carpet-baggers, and scalawags had caused irritation between the races, there was a determination on the part of the best whites in public and private life, as a measure of self-defence as well as a duty and as justice, to do all that lay in their power to fit the negro for citizenship. Most of the newspapers were in favor of education to fit the negro for his changed condition. Now that he had to stand alone, education was necessary to keep him from stealing, from idleness, and from a return to barbarism; in some parts of the Black Belt there was a tendency to return to African customs. It was necessary to substitute the discipline of education for the discipline of slavery.[1763] The Democratic party leaders were in favor of negro education, and General Clanton, who for years was the chairman of the executive committee, repeatedly made speeches in favor of it, and attended the sessions and examinations at the negro schools, often examining the classes himself. He and General John B. Gordon spoke in Montgomery at a public meeting and declared that it was the duty of the whites to educate the negro, whose good behavior during the war entitled him to it. Their remarks were cheered by the whites.[1764] Colonel Jefferson Falkner, at a Baptist Association in Pike County, advised that the negro be educated by southern men and women. Pike was a white county, and while no objection was raised to Falkner’s speech, several persons told him that if he thought southern women ought to teach negroes, he had better have his own daughters do it. Falkner replied that he was willing when their services were needed.[1765] White people made destitute by the war or crippled soldiers were ready to engage in the instruction of negroes; and the Montgomery Advertiser and other papers took the ground that they should be employed, especially the disabled soldiers.[1766] General Clanton stated that many Confederate soldiers and the widows of Confederate soldiers were teaching negro schools, that he had assisted them in securing positions. Such work, he said, was indorsed by most of the prominent people.[1767]
The blacks in Selma signed an appeal to the city council for their own white people to teach them, and the churches made preparations to give instruction to the freedmen.[1768] The Monroe County Agricultural Association declared it to be the duty of the whites to teach the negro, and a committee was appointed to formulate a plan for negro schools.[1769] Conecuh and Wilcox counties followed with similar declarations. A public meeting in Perry County, of such men as ex-Governor A. B. Moore and J. L. M. Curry, declared that sound policy and moral obligation required that prompt efforts be made to fit the negro for his changed political condition. His education must be encouraged. The teachers, white and black, were to be chosen with a careful regard to fitness. A committee was appointed to coöperate with the negroes in building schoolhouses and in procuring teachers, whom they assured of support.[1770]