Cason, 90 in the Shade

My contention is not that the jealous hatred of the so-called poor whites and the petty economic exploitations are wholly responsible for whatever injustices may hang upon the shoulders of the black man today. Below the surface of these major factors, there is an important historical root which explains a tendency of reputable southern people of the older generation to look with horror upon suggestions that the franchise and jury service might ever be freely extended to the Negro in the South. These older people still remember “the tragic era,” when the vengeance of Stevens and Sumner lay heavily upon the South. They vividly recall the efforts of the original Ku Klux Klan and the Order of the White Camellia to preserve the white South against the domination of Negroes who were in the power of scalawags and carpet-baggers.

Men now fifty years old will tell you how their fathers in tidewater Virginia, fifty years ago, would place high-powered rifles conspicuously in the rear of their buggies on election days in districts where the Negroes outnumbered the whites ten to one. The rifles with their magnifying-glass sights, would never be removed from the buggies. No disorder took place. The white planters would simply gather quietly in small groups and remain near the voting places, often the grange houses, from early morning until sundown. The Negroes would be there too, chatting pleasantly enough among themselves and with the white men; but the steel muzzles peeping from the rear of the buggies always served to send home their messages of discretion.

In those days in Virginia the Republican ballots were printed on rather coarse brown paper, while names of the Democratic candidates appeared on “lily white” paper of a smooth texture. When it was found that voting boxes obviously had been stuffed, the settled procedure was for a respected citizen to stand blindfolded and draw from the box a number of ballots sufficient to make the remaining total correspond to the number of qualified voters in the community. On one occasion the Sunday school superintendent was chosen for this duty. For several days before the drawing he could be seen going about with his fingers busily engaged in the side-pockets of his coat. Actually, he was training his finger-tips to be sensitive to the difference between the coarse texture of the Republican ballot and the smooth finish of the “lily white” paper. On the day of the scheduled drawing, this man of religion, though heavily blindfolded like Justice herself, was able to extract only Republican ballots from the box, and the election was officially a triumph for the Democrats. A story is told of the corresponding period in Selma, Alabama, where the Democrats persuaded a circus manager to accept Republican poll-tax receipts as tickets to the show. The Negro voters were encouraged to attend the circus, and the Democrats won the election.

These instances illustrate the devices employed by the “best people” of the South half a century ago. What they did to keep the Negro from voting was illegal of course; but being themselves officially deprived of the ballot by reason of the Civil War amendments, their practical nullification of the Fourteenth Amendment was then necessary for their own self-preservation.

But the contemporary picture is vastly different. The “best people” of the South have gone far toward regaining their feet. Certainly they no longer find it necessary to employ devious means in protecting their own welfare against any racial menace. The more reputable southern people also have recovered to a large extent from the terrific onslaughts begun against them by the Populists in the 1890s. The recent hullabaloo over “white supremacy” has been a cheap and degraded imitation of the efforts of superior white people of past generations to avoid annihilation. Similarly, the recent revivals of the Ku Klux Klan have represented the spurious endeavors of the lower middle class to imitate the defensive measures identified with the genteel Order of the White Camellia of bygone days, and with the picturesque Ku Klux Klan during the short interval when it was led by General Forrest and sanctioned by General Lee before abuses of its honorable regalia resulted in its disbandment in 1869.