By
SENATOR W. B. ROBERTS
Any Southerner whose
ancestor was a soldier of the American Revolution has a proud heritage, but
even prouder is his whose forbear followed R. E. Lee, rode with Forrest, was
wounded at Shiloh, or fought at Gettysburg. Beyond that, one whose parent was a
trusted member of the Ku Klux Klan during the early days of Reconstruction in
the central South may be proud of his ancestry.
Only those who lived
through those dark days can know of the horror of having one's slaves become
his rulers. A proud people were governed by their servants and remnants of the Union
Army, reinforced by a horde of office-seekers who came to prey upon a fallen
foe like jackals and buzzards.
The end of the war in
1865 left the South prostrate financially and almost hopeless of the future. It
is hardly possible to vision conditions as they existed at that time or even to
trace the heroic efforts of our people to care for their families and restore
their civil government. Our lands had grown up in bushes, our houses were
burned or dilapidated beyond repair, we were without money, and we had no
friends in Washington. Federal soldiers were at the election places, our women
were being forced off the sidewalks by the insolent blacks, and despair was
everywhere. It was in these conditions that under the secret leadership of
General Bedford Forrest the Ku Klux Klan was organized for the protection of
the defenseless, the preservation of law and order, and the traditions of the
South. Their meeting places were secret and none but brave men, willing to risk
their lives, were admitted to secret membership. I remember, as a small boy, my
mother arousing me from my sleep to come to the window to see the parade of the
Ku Klux Klan on some errand of mercy or, perchance, of vengeance upon some
miscreant who had violated the traditions of our people. Few in number, their
work was of necessity done in secret. I remember knowing, even as a boy, that
if work was to be done in a town or near a town, clansmen from a neighboring
town would quickly, after night, enter the town, do their work during church hours,
and then quickly disappear; while all clansmen in the neighborhood were
conspicuous in the church, loudly singing hymns and listening to a long sermon,
with a perfect alibi.
There can be little
doubt that there would have been many more outrages upon our people in those
dark days had it not been for the restraining influence of the clansmen upon
the newly enfranchised blacks, inspired to devilment by vicious white
interlopers bent on keeping the defeated Southerners under the existing rule,
in order that their system of plunder might be perpetuated as long as possible.
With these conditions confronting them, our people determined to free
themselves of the existing government of Negroes and Carpetbaggers.
In 1875, the
white people of the state, under the leadership of George, Walthall, Clark,
Lowry, Barksdale, and others, rid the state of Negro and carpetbag officials;
but it was fifteen years later before the last of them retired from office in
Bolivar County. As late as 1882, the negro population of Bolivar County was so
dense that the 250 white voters in the county were confronted with over four
thousand negro voters; and all kinds of trades and so-called frauds were
resorted to, to rid the country of this irksome condition. The state had a
negro United States Senator in Washington, elected from Rosedale in Bolivar
County, B. K. Bruce, by name; a negro Congressman, John R. Lynch, who, by the way, was living in Chicago a year ago
when
the writer enjoyed an hour's conversation with him about people of fifty years
ago. Both Bruce and Lynch were able men, fairly represented the people electing
them, and exerted a good influence among their race; and their influence,
together with that of Isaiah Montgomery, J. H. Bufford,
George Gayles, and others of the colored race, went far in creating amity
among the people of the county.
In 1882 and 1883 the older men called me into
conference with them and in deep earnestness explained to me that to retain
even a show of white supremacy, which they regarded as necessary, it- was my
duty as a young lawyer and citizen to use my brains and skill to devise ways of
preventing negro control by any means in my power. And so all of us worked
toward that end. I regret that space and time permit me to mention only a few
of the ludicrous occurrences in our efforts to control the elections.
On one occasion
Congress had passed a law providing that the Federal judge should appoint two
inspectors at each box to guarantee a fair election of Congressmen. Two
inspectors at one of our large boxes were appointed, and at the close of the
election, when a box had been prepared with which to change the result of the
election, the two negro inspectors positively refused to leave the room even
for supper. Under this stress, one of the white managers, who was a doctor,
told them this was one time when the colored and white folks would eat
together; and he went out and returned presently with a number of boxes of
sardines and crackers. He had, with a hypodermic needle, injected croton oil,
or some other violent drug, into the two boxes handed the Negroes. In a very
few minutes the Negroes were sick and had to leave hurriedly, and the box
showed at the count a big majority for the Democrats.
At the box at Bolivar
where I lived at the time, there were five hundred negro voters and only about
twenty-five white voters. One can imagine the difficulty of making that box
show a Democratic majority. One favorite scheme was to mix bills of lading at
the river and ship by mistake a ballot box to St. Louis while a coil of rope or
bale of cotton was sent to the county site to
be counted; or the ballot box might, accidentally, be
dropped out of the window of a train;
in fact, any trick might be employed that seemed to promise a chance of
success.
The present generation can hardly realize that even up to 1895
there were numerous negro officers in Bolivar County. We used what was known as
the fusion system, and that was to agree for the Negroes to have some of the offices,
and the whites, of course, the best ones. While Bolivar County had two negro
sheriffs, B. K. Bruce and J. E. Ousley, we never had any but white men for
chancery clerk. At one time all the officers were black except the chancery
clerk. The writer has appeared in court as a lawyer with all the court
officials, the twelve men on the jury, and the lawyers on the other side, as
well as all witnesses, being black. In fact this condition existed in the
county until the constitutional convention of 1890 disfranchised the Negroes by
legal means.
Almost every justice of the peace of the county was a Negro,
many of them very illiterate and lacking in
sufficient intelligence for their position. Let it be said to their credit,
however, that they never, at any time, showed any prejudice against white men
in their administration of justice; and, so far as the writer can remember,
they administered justice as justly and fairly as their limited ability
permitted.
As a fair indication of conditions of the time, I recall that a
newly elected negro justice came to a lawyer near him, stated that he wanted
the lawyer to help him with his docket and judgments, and told the lawyer that
he expected always to decide the lawyer's cases in his favor, but he wanted the
lawyer "always to read the claw in the law upon which it is to base my
decision." Sufficient to say the lawyer always cited the "claw"
and marked it, and the justice faithfully carried out the agreement during his
terms of office.
In those days our districts were divided by lines running east
and west. The river was known as the "front," and it was. the custom
of all justices to hold their courts at the levee, usually in the back of a
saloon or on a porch; or, if the weather was warm, in the shade of a tree. It
was the custom of the jury after hearing the evidence and arguments to proceed
over the levee to consider their verdict. This recalls an amusing case, in
which the writer was one of the lawyers, involving a Texas pony. One of the
litigants was a big black preacher and the other a "likely looking"
yellow girl, all bedecked with red ribbons and rather striking clothing. After
hearing the argument, the jury retired over the levee as usual and quickly
returned a verdict in the following words: "We, the jury, finds that Annie
must have the horse with all our hearts."
In 1886, Dr. H. L. Sutherland, a real gentleman of the old
school, was the mayor of the town of Bolivar, where I then resided. He was
trying a case about a pair of smoothing irons used by washerwomen.
A negro lawyer by the name of Rufe Richardson from Rosedale was opposing
counsel to me, and during the argument, Richardson, addressing himself to the
court, exclaimed, "Have I come down here all the way from Rosedale
to cast my pearls before swine!" Immediately the hand of the court began
moving towards one of the irons lying on the table, and the lawyer saw
the movement just in time to get out the door as the smoothing iron hurled by
the court hit the door casing.
In the eighties it
was the custom of the circuit judge to hold his courts first at old Austin on
the river, the county site of Tunica County, then at Friars Point, then
Rosedale, then Greenville, and on down to Mayersville. A number of lawyers went
from court to court; and, during court, accommodations for visitors were
limited, many of the negro litigants and witnesses sleeping in the courtroom,
with several poker games in continuous session in the saloons adjacent. As
facilities were limited, it was the custom to have a poker game in the grand
jury room where there were a table and chairs; and I remember well hearing the
negro deputy sheriff going to a poker game one morning and announcing,
"Gents, the court am in session upstairs." This meant for the game to
suspend and the grand jury to resume its sessions. Of the negro lawyers then in
practice in the courts I can remember the names of but three, Rufus Richardson
at Rosedale, one named Harris at Greenville, and A. B. Grimes at Mound Landing;
the latter, I believe, is still living in the lower end of the county.
It was during one of
these court poker games about 1883 that occurred an incident that has come to
be used nationally as a joke ofttimes told and even now is worth repeating. A
game was going on over a saloon in Rosedale known as the "Sky
Parlor," and the luck was all going to one man who had only one eye. After
a heavy loss, one of the players who had stood the losses steadily
finally drew a big pistol from his hip pocket, laid it on the table by him and
announced, "This game may be straight, but I want to say that if the luck
don't change soon, I am going to shoot somebody's other eye out." It
changed!
In the eighties there
were twenty-three lawyers in the county, all of course living at towns along
the river. A majority of them lived in towns away from the county site,
Rosedale.
The writer, a young
lawyer during this period, resided at Bolivar and practiced law somewhat like a
doctor practices medicine in that he rode horseback from court to court.
He carried with him in a pair of saddle bags just a code of state laws and
oftentimes a Bible from which he frequently quoted with good effect to
the negro juries before whom he appeared in behalf of clients.
In those days we
traveled either on horseback or by steamboat. My business
frequently called me to Rosedale from Bolivar, my home twenty miles
distant, and in the spring when the river was high, it was so difficult to make
the trip on horseback that I frequently took a steamboat,
and if it was night, got off the boat at Terrene, where
there was a wharfboat with rooms for travelers, and walked four miles down to
Rosedale the next morning.
However, those were
happy days after all; our people were a hospitable lot of folks who shared each
other's troubles and burdens: and it was quite the custom for a family to visit
another family for even weeks at a time. When over-crowded, we thought nothing
of sleeping on the floor or a store counter. We attended dances, arriving
before dark and dancing until daylight so that we could see how to get home, as
there were few roads, and they were almost, impassable in the winter. Our
people cared little for money or position or fine clothes (our girls made their
own clothes) and all we wanted was a comfortable place to live without
ostentation, and a good horse and buggy.
The people of whom I write and who were the controlling influence in the county
have nearly all passed to their final sleep; the cane has given way to the
tractor and automobile; "the finger has writ and having writ has passed
on," and just a memory is now all the few of us have left of those dark
days of Reconstruction, as well as the happy days that succeeded them.