USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: North Carolina since 1860, Volume III > Part 22
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Probably the most absorbing question before the Legisla- ture was that of the railroads. Laws were passed providing for the redemption of unused mileage, modifying the fellow- servant law, and increasing the power of the railroad com- mission. An attempt was made to abolish the commission but it was fruitless. Whether it was serious or intended only to oust J. W. Wilson, the last remaining democrat, is unknown. All efforts to secure the passage of an act prohibiting public officials from using railroad passes failed. Such an act was said to have been passed in 1895 and stolen before publication.
The chief railroad question was of course in relation to the lease of the North Carolina Railroad. Governor Carr, in his message, had invited investigation and Russell had at- tacked the transaction in his inaugural and demanded that it be set aside. With governor, republicans, populists, and many democrats violently opposed, some definite action by the legislature might have been expected, but there was none. A commission was appointed to investigate the charges of fraud and witnesses were examined but there was no result nor any appearance of fraud. As a matter of fact, there had been none. The governor, for the state, had been convinced of the wisdom of the lease and the directors on the part of the private stockholders were in the main equally favorable. During the session Raleigh was thronged with a numerous and powerful
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railroad lobby and great pressure was brought to bear upon the members. The Southern Railway sought a confirmation of the lease from the legislature but was unable to secure it. The House passed a bill to annul the lease but the Senate refused it, passing in its stead a bill reducing the term of the lease from ninety-nine to thirty years. This was refused by the House. It finally seemed likely that the governor would be instructed to test the validity of the lease in the courts and Judge Simonton of the United States Circuit Court issued an injunction restraining the governor from interfering with the lease. Later on, certain private parties were similarly en- joined by Judge Parnell of the United States District Court. The governor quite naturally and properly denied Judge Simonton's jurisdiction, but he was forced to yield and a year later, apparently entirely satisfied with the situation, he con- firmed the lease.
The process of altering town charters in the interest of republican governments therein, begun in 1895, was continued at this session. In his inaugural Governor Russell had inti- mated that something must be done to protect property and the minority against the majority. It developed that this pro- tection in the case of New Bern and Wilmington was to be secured by giving the governor the power to appoint an alder- man for each ward in addition to those elected. Not only a travesty upon the much vaunted local self-government, it was also, in the minds of many citizens of those communities, a remedy as bad if not worse than the disease. Under the opera- tions of the new charters the two towns fell upon evil days. The charter of Raleigh was amended but, contrary to expecta- tion and intention, the town went democratic. Attempts to change the charters of a number of other towns in the East failed. Greenville, condemned to suffer sufficiently under the change of 1895, by which it was put under negro control, was on the point of worse punishment but was spared through the efforts of a populist senator.
The session was not lacking in quarrels. At times the order of the houses was bad and once policemen had to be stationed in the lobbies to prevent trouble. All of this was of course magnified by the opposition. One of the most interesting of
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the factional quarrels grew out of the refusal of the enrolling clerk, one Swinson, to accept two new negro assistants who were pressed upon him, on the ground that it had already in the month of February cost $1,500 to do $6 worth of work at the current rates of copying. Further he was determined not to have any negroes in his office. Attempts to bring him around failed and a law was passed abolishing his office and placing its work under the direction of the lieutenant-governor and the speaker, by which means the negroes were installed in the places. Swinson declined to yield at first and the lieutenant-governor and the speaker broke into his desk. He then had them arrested but both were acquitted.
The Progressive Farmer made the following comment. "Thus the people's money is being divided out to pay political rewards. There is no help for it now. But the taxpayers of North Carolina will speak in thunder tones at the polls when there is another election. No party, no man, has ever been able to run roughshod over the people of this State but a short time. 'There is retribution in history.' "
The incompetence of the legislature is possibly more de- serving of criticism and censure than the nature of its inten- tions. A large number of its acts were unconstitutional, and so declared by the court, a larger number, defective, and a greater number still, badly drawn. Inexperience and poor leadership were of course largely responsible for this.
During the greater part of the session the republicans and bolting populists acted together, the republicans, of course, being in entire control. But at times the democrats and enough populists united to defeat certain proposed measures which were notably vicious. It was in this way that further tampering with town charters was largely averted. In time many of the majority populists grew restive, saw clearly that co-operation and fusion would soon mean the absorption of the populist party by the republicans on their own terms, and the reaction to the democratic party began. They felt truly that they had been tricked and swindled, and both their own leaders and the republicans together fell under suspicion and, as suspicion became a certainty, under the ban of their harsh condemnation. Even the Caucasian saw what was the re-
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publican intention. When the Asheville Reporter, a repub- lican paper said: "The time is drawing near for the final amalgamation. The next election is an off year. Cooperation, if we be discreet now, will be natural and easy and we can absorb all the populists who are worth having by 1900," the Caucasian replied :
Who is promising to grease our heads and heels so we can be swal- lowed easily ?
Just listen. Populists may use Republicans for the purpose of furthering the people's interests, as was done in the last campaign. And Republican bosses will lend themselves even for a good purpose when they are treated with a little pie, if they can get it no other way. Yes, Populists will use Republicans for that purpose, but by all the gods of the people's hopes, that is all the use a Populist has for Repub- licans. And as for the amalgamation business, we have to say in the language of the famous sage and poet, "We will be if Populists and niggers can ever amalgamate in this State and country." Do you hear ?
On account of these and many other things the legislature was not popular. Democrats and the democratic press natur- ally condemned it. Such a paper as the North Carolina Christian Advocate, not as a rule given to political discussion, said of it, "Three distinct parties were represented. Two of these, the Republican and the Populist, were so divided that they really made four parties. The responsibility of the legislation just enacted must rest upon the Republican and Populist parties. It [the legislature] was a mix- ture of age and youth, ability and weakness, wisdom and foolishness, honor and dishonor Legislation, therefore, of a widely satisfactory nature could hardly be expected under the circumstances."
Even more significant were the comments of the Progres- sive Farmer and of the Caucasian, both of which were bitterly critical. When Russell was considering keeping the legisla- ture in extra session just at the close of the regular session, the Progressive Farmer's comment was short but sincere. "There is talk of an extra session of the legislature. Please don't Governor Russell. We can endure famine, pestilence, drouth, war, but don't inflict any prolonged agony on the State, such as an extra session. If they don't do anything, let 'em go home."
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The following comment of the Caucasian indicates its spirit :
The proposed amendments to the election law are not right. The plan to place the appointment of poll holders in the hands of their "Supervisors," who, in all probability, will be a Populist bolter, a gold-bug Republican and a gold-bug Democrat-three of a kind- taking the whole machinery out of the hands of the three parties, is an outrageous proceeding. The Payne election law, and the con- struction of it by the Democratic election tyrants was bad enough, but as compared to this new machine about to be thrust upon us, was a mild affair. By this new method the will of the people at the ballot- box would simply be the wishes of the three "Supervisors." The peo- ple of North Carolina are not ready for a yoke of that kind. The party, the combination of parties, that attempts to lasso the people of North Carolina in such a manner will find it has undertaken too much.
The scheme to take the government of towns and cities out of the hands of the citizens of said municipalities are second only to "'Supervisor" plans. The Governor of North Carolina should not have the power to dictate the municipal officers of any town or city. That power should be invested in the citizens of said towns and cities. Neither should the Clerk of the Superior Court, or any other State or county affairs, have such power. It is contrary to the principles of a Republican form of government.
Popular relief was great when the session finally came to an end, and for a time political activity ceased. In August the populist state committee met and issued a circular in the nature of a swan-song which contained the following claim of achievement :
We have secured to the citizen the right to cast one vote at all pub- lic elections and to have that vote counted as cast. We have taken the public schools out of the hands of politicians and restored them to the people. We have given the right of local self-government to each county in the State. We have removed the judiciary of the State to a safe distance from the arena of partisan politics. For a more effective and equitable control and reduction of the encroachment of railroad corporations, we suggest that the railroad commissioners should be elected in a direct vote of the people.
In the meantime the attention of the public was deflected from legislative shortcomings to the character of the fusion administration. This did not strengthen the fusion cause. Scandals began. The penitentiary, which under the skilful management of Leazer had finally become self-supporting, came under the control of the governor who appointed as
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superintendent a henchman of his, one John R. Smith. As physician of the newly established department of criminal insane, Dr. Kirby H. Smith, the superintendent's son, was ap- pointed. As chaplain Rev. Thomas W. Babb was selected. Almost immediately well-substantiated charges were made by one of the directors that Babb was utterly unworthy, being an habitual drunkard, with a record of dishonesty, falsehood, and immorality. Only under pressure was he removed as chaplain and made steward of the Caledonia penitentiary farm. Later in the year Doctor Smith suddenly left Raleigh. An attempt was made to smother investigation but the matter was aired and it appeared that he had been guilty of gross immorality in his relations with his insane patients. Finally in 1898 the governor began a new régime at the penitentiary, which under Smith's administration he found to be losing a great deal of money through extravagance and gross corrup- tion. Instead of dismissing him, the governor forced an ex- change between Smith and Mewborne, the commissioner of agriculture, stating that in his new position Smith would have little opportunity to do anything good or bad.
Under the new law in relation to the Agricultural and Mechanical College there was a shake-up there which resulted in the dismissal of a number of employes and teachers.
The Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad came com- pletely under the control of the governor in 1897. He caused Robert Hancock to be made president as a reward for faith- ful personal political service. A complete overturn in the road followed. In January, 1898, Hancock was accused of the seduction of his wife's niece and other similar charges fol- lowed. In February Russell secured his removal as director by the board of internal improvements and at the governor's insistent demand he was a few days later dismissed from the presidency. His reply was an open letter to the governor reminding him of a meeting at the Mansion at which both the governor and the board of directors had agreed that the charges were false. He accused Russell of forcing the re- moval because his suggestion, made in the form of an ulti- matum that Hancock should commit a violent assault upon Josephus Daniels, the editor of the News and Observer, had Vol. III-18
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not been carried out. The matter ended here and Hancock soon after was located in a federal office. To succeed him the governor selected an incompetent person, but public pressure prevented his appointment and he was given a minor position.
In August, 1897, the governor summoned J. W. Wilson and S. Otho Wilson, two members of the railroad commission, to answer charges of having an interest in a hotel at Round Knob which was entirely dependent for its success upon railroad patronage and of receiving other favors from the Southern Railroad. He removed them, appointing L. C. Caldwell and John H. Pearson to replace them. The Wilsons would not yield and carried the matter to the courts, which decided against them.
The most significant political event of the year, viewed in retrospect, was the meeting in Raleigh in November of a con- vention of the Lincoln Republican League, composed of negroes, to protest against the giving of ten offices to one hun- dred and twenty thousand negroes and all the rest to thirty thousand white republicans. They demanded that the ne- groes in future vote for no man opposed to full recognition for their race and that before nominations were made a pledge should be exacted from every candidate that one-half of the clerical force of the office be given to negroes.
It was very clear by this time that the negroes would not be content with what they were receiving of the spoils of politics, and the republicans were in a most difficult position. They were well aware of course that the mass of populists were already disgusted with the prominence of the negroes and in no mood to stomach anything further in that direction. Already, too, the situation was rapidly developing which was to overthrow the fusion régime. For, from the standpoint of the mass of white people in the state, the negro already had far too much. A glance at the facts will illustrate the situ- ation.
In the East the negroes were filling many offices. The posi- tion of justice of the peace, as in Reconstruction, had to con- tent most of them. Craven had twenty-seven; Columbus, five; Hertford, six; Pasquotank, three; Perquimans, six; Jones, three; Caswell, seven; Wayne, six; Nash, three; Edgecombe, ,
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thirty-one; Richmond, ten; Bertie, sixteen; Halifax, twenty- nine; and Granville, seventeen. In all there were over three hundred in the state. The school committees likewise suf- fered. Craven had thirteen members; Hertford, ten; Mont- gomery, four; Richmond, twenty-three; Columbus, seventeen ; Chowan, eight; Pasquotank, five; Perquimans, ten; Jones, twelve; Hyde, eight; and Beaufort, Caswell, and Edgecombe, one in every township. In many of the counties were negro members of the county boards of education, county commis- sioners, deputy sheriffs, and constables. In New Hanover and Craven the registers of deeds and their deputies were negroes. There were about twenty-five negro postmasters in the East and numerous revenue officials. The towns in the East were even worse off. In Greenville where the negroes were in the minority, under the charter of 1895, four of the six aldermen were negroes and the town was dominated by them. Govern- ment as a result was extravagant and corrupt. New Bern had of negro officials five policemen, three aldermen, the city en- gineer, and the city attorney. The condition of Wilmington was pitiable. White people owned 97 per cent of the property and paid that proportion of the taxes. The mayor, a white man, owned no property and paid very small taxes. Negroes were most of the time in a majority on the police force, four negroes were on the board of aldermen, forty were magis- trates, and they filled every position in the health department. The collector of the port, also, was a negro. There was no security left for person or property. Burglary, robbery, and murder were offences of increasing frequency and negro juries made conviction practically impossible. Along with vio- lence and misgovernment went extravagance and corruption. As a result of these conditions, business was stagnant, depres- sion was general, and the community which should have been prosperous was retrograding.
No one could contend that negro government was efficient in any sense or that the presence of the negro tended to good government. On the contrary it was in every sense evil. Slovenly incapacity was bad enough, but the multiplication of crimes of violence, particularly of those against white women, was unbearable. The prominence of the negro bred in the
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race a sense of importance which expressed itself in an as- sertiveness which Southern white people have ever found dif- ficult to bear and which early took a violent form. In the towns gangs of negroes frequently forced white people into the streets. Affrays were common, and assaults numerous. In the city courts, dominated as they were by negroes or those dependent upon them, there was no redress. Self-restraint was of course a quality well-nigh unknown to a large pro- portion of the race and so encouraged by white schemers who climbed to place and power upon their backs, and backed by a remnant of the old carpet-baggers or their descendants, the negroes set about making the same condition of affairs which had largely contributed to make Reconstruction unbearable and ultimately had led to its overthrow almost a generation before, at the same time putting upon the republican party a stigma which it had never been able to remove. For the presence of the negro in government in North Carolina no principle was responsible; it was a matter of politics alone. Republicans, at least native ones, had no illusions about the negro nor any belief that his participation in politics was a matter of principle. The sole reason for putting the negro into office was the desire and necessity of holding and con- trolling the solid vote of the race. And as always this meant the debauching of the community.
Such was the situation in the state when the critical cam- paign of 1898 was ushered in.
In the fusion era the republican party had lost a wonderful opportunity for rehabilitation. It came into power when the democratic party was completely discredited, and under the most favorable conditions for absorbing the populists. Nor need the republicans have been dependent upon populists alone for increasing their white membership. There was a large element which was dissatisfied with the democratic party, which thought that the time had come for a two-party political system in the state, and which, because composed chiefly of young men, had no keen hatred of the republican party. The new and growing industrial group was also well-disposed. With the exercise of any wisdom, with good government, with interest in social and economic reform, with a record of
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achievement, these elements might have been won and along with them public confidence. Of course had they been won it would have meant the transformation of the party and the enforced retirement of many leaders. That possibly explains the failure to grasp an opportunity which was at the time clearly visible, for the party was "bossed" by its leaders who naturally were not looking to their own displacement. Thus was postponed to the indefinite future the renascence of re- publicanism in the state to the detriment of the party and the hurt of the state which has sadly needed the stimulus of two parties as well as the services of the many able, honest, and enlightened republicans who have since had small opportunity in public life.
The fate of the populist party was a pathetic one. Origi- nating, as it did, in response to a real necessity and in protest against genuine grievances, few parties have been inspired with better motives. At times prejudiced, often mistaken and misled by economic heresies, its members were nevertheless animated by a genuinely progressive spirit. Their greatest blunder was fusion and for that the rank and file was scarcely responsible. It is an interesting but a natural thing that pro- testing against the rule of "bosses" in the democratic party, they should have delivered their political destinies into the hands of a small group of leaders not all of whom were in- spired by ideals. That they did so was of course due to their inexperience and ignorance of politics. It was these leaders who undertook to reform the republican party through fusion with it and led the party into a scheme designed to benefit the leaders and the republicans, but to do little to make effective the ideals and principles of the party. Economy, so ardently desired, was replaced by extravagance and efficiency by gov- ernmental disorder and corruption. Even their demands for a fair election law and for local self-government were trans- lated into laws that, considering the ideals behind them, would have been laughable if they had not been so tragic. Rightly led the populists in no longer time might probably have se- cured a revolution in North Carolina politics, unattended by the lost power, mal-administration, and other evils which characterized fusion.
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And yet the populists accomplished much of good. In a positive way their educational liberality was their best char- acteristic. They impressed this upon the state, and the demo- crats, returning to power, were forced to accept it and con- tinue it. Their greatest achievements, however, were accom- plished indirectly. Of these the most important was the liberalizing of the democratic party which through defeat was chastened and purified. When it returned to power it was with new and progressive leadership and with a new sense of responsibility to the people for social improvement. Once more it set its face to the future. The other great indirect result of populism was a new attitude towards the race ques- tion. Fusion awakened the people to a new sense of the danger of the negro in politics and bred a determination to eliminate him for the future that a new peace and security might come to the commonwealth. Thus in a new sense the doctrine of White Supremacy was presented to the state.
CHAPTER XIV
WHITE SUPREMACY
The war with Spain produced in North Carolina the same flare of enthusiasm as in the rest of the country. Everywhere was the evident feeling that here were sealed with blood the indissoluble ties which bound the state to the nation, not alone in political union but beyond dispute in one of hearts as well. The state had from Appomattox accepted the result of the Civil War in utter good faith, but had not always felt itself to be accepted by the North into full fellowship. Now with the loss of its sons in battle under the flag of the United States it claimed that fellowship. It was a significant change of atti- tude, and, occurring elsewhere in the South, was in some re- spects the best thing connected with the war.
The quota of the state in troops was two regiments of in- fantry and one battery of artillery. In place of the latter was substituted a battalion of three companies of negro infantry which was later expanded into a full regiment. None of the regiments, saw service. When Havana was occupied the First Regiment was sent there for a short time, but the others never left the United States.
Interested as the state was in the war, it really occupied a secondary place, so intent were the people .upon politics. The mass of the white people were determined upon a political change and it is not a matter of doubt that the war itself and the good feeling induced thereby between the sections made possible the political revolution which was presently to occur.
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