A DIFFERENT STATE OF MIND: BEN TILLMAN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1885-1895 by KEVIN MICHAEL KRAUSE (Under the Direction of Stephen W. Berry) ABSTRACT This dissertation examines Benjamin Ryan Tillman’s political activity in the late 1880s, and governorship in South Carolina from 1890 to 1894. While many historians have focused primarily on Tillman’s white supremacy and class-based demagoguery, this project, through a series of case studies focusing on prominent political issues, suggests that Tillman’s administration understood the role of state government in a dramatically different manner than his Conservative, or “Bourbon,” predecessors, who exhibited reluctance to employ the power of state in most cases. Where Conservatives preferred a minimalist state and elite rule, Tillman and his lieutenants attempted to bolster the power of the state government to empower white agricultural “producers.” The chapters include analyses of the agricultural college debate, reforms to the penitentiary and lunatic asylum, governmental approaches to railroad and phosphate monopolies, the state alcohol dispensary, and the constitutional disfranchisement of African Americans.
Despite the reality that many of Tillman’s objectives were not realized by his vision of a sovereign and active state government—such as widespread landownership and prosperity for white, small farmers—his overall philosophy of the active and energetic state, which was in line with many Progressive-era conceptions of government, is worth taking seriously. INDEX WORDS: Benjamin Ryan Tillman, South Carolina, Disfranchisement, Prohibition, Dispensary, Railroad Regulation, Monopoly, State Government, Conservative, Wade Hampton, Phosphate, Southern Race Relations, Producerism, Reform, Clemson College, Agriculture A DIFFERENT STATE OF MIND: BEN TILLMAN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1885-1895 by KEVIN MICHAEL KRAUSE BA, University of South Carolina Upstate, 2006 MA, Clemson University, 2008 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2014 © 2014 Kevin Michael Krause All Rights Reserved A DIFFERENT STATE OF MIND: BEN TILLMAN AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1885-1895 by KEVIN MICHAEL KRAUSE Major Professor: Stephen W. Berry Committee: John C. Cobb Rod Andrew, Jr.
Electronic Version Approved: Julie Coffield Interim Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2014 iv DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Maxie and Linda Krause. I would have never reached this point without their tireless support. Their love is unconditional and unwavering, and I am blessed to be their son. It was, however, not simply abstract love that helped me; it was also their tireless efforts of driving me to school and research facilities, making copies, taking pictures of dusty documents and books, and simply waiting on me for countless hours.
I hope they know that my love for them, and appreciation of them, is inexpressible. Secondly, I must also dedicate this in part to Dr. Rob McCormick, my first history professor at the University of South Carolina Upstate. I enrolled in his class only to fill a requirement, but his passion for teaching history inspired me and set me on the path to becoming a scholar and teacher.
Without knowing, he essentially helped me find direction and purpose at the time that I needed it most. He has since become a mentor and a wonderful friend to my family and me. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Anyone who has ever taken on a project of this magnitude understands that one person does not accomplish it alone. At least, for us mere mortals, throughout the process of questioning, researching, and writing, we repeatedly find that our work improves substantially when we benefit from the invaluable experience and guidance of those who have trod the path before.
Therefore, I would like to thank Dr. Stephen Berry, my major professor (and valued friend) who has guided me through each step, from conceiving the embryonic idea, to forming and honing this final product. He continually challenged me to avoid complacency, to ask more probing questions, and to seek truth more deeply. The other members of my committee have also provided crucial help, counsel, constructive criticism, and friendship.
Rod Andrew, in addition to providing keen insight into South Carolina society and politics, was a great help in developing my Master’s thesis and applying for the Ph. program at the University of Georgia. James Cobb has, more than any professor I have ever worked with, forced me to become a more rigorous and careful writer. Earlier in my career as a graduate student, I found it difficult to accept criticism of my work, but Dr.
Cobb’s frank assessment of problematic issues has helped, I believe, to improve my research and writing skills immeasurably. John Inscoe has encouraged and supported me since my first visit to the department in 2009. I have benefited from his knowledge and scholarly guidance, and like Dr. Cobb, he has helped improve my writing as well.
It is, however, his character that has benefited me more than anything. His kindness, optimism, and genuine concern vi for the well-being of others has made a lasting impression on me, and many other students, I am sure. He and his wife have become cherished friends of my family, and we appreciate their friendship immensely. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
1 CHAPTER 1 A GLASS FULL OF “BOURBON”: CONSERVATIVE RULE. 17 2 SCHOOL DAYS: OPPOSING CONCEPTIONS OF STATE COLLEGES. 54 3 WITHIN THESE WALLS: THE LUNATIC ASYLUM AND PENITENTIARY. 101 4 DOWN BY THE COOSAW: THE PHOSPHATE INDUSTRY AND MONOPOLY.
133 5 RIDING RAILS: CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMERS ON RAILROADS AND THE STATE. 172 6 RUM DEMONS AND WHISKEY RINGS: PROHIBITION TO THE STATE DISPENSARY. 206 7 WHITE MEN, BLACK LAWS: A WHITE SUPREMACIST STATE. 293 INTRODUCTION On a sweltering afternoon in the middle of August, 1892, a farmer from the upcountry of South Carolina hitched up his team of mules and drove a wagon full of produce to the nearest store in Clifton, a tiny, rural town eight miles east of the larger railroad junction of Spartanburg.
Upon reaching the country store, the farmer—a white man, most likely of modest means—remained perched on the driver’s seat and yelled towards the store. He wanted to know if the storekeeper was interested in purchasing his wagonload of melons. The proprietor stepped out the front door, briefly perused the contents of the wagon, looked at the farmer and asked, “What sort of melons have you?” The farmer, perplexed because the melons were in plain sight, answered that of course they were watermelons. Then the storeowner sternly replied, “I don’t mean that.
Are they Tillman melons?” The farmer then clearly understood the implications of the merchant’s question, but insisted that, “they [the melons] have nothing to do with that question,” and then honestly added, “but I’m not a Tillman man.” The storeowner eyed the farmer sternly; his curt reply was: “Drive on. We don’t want you, nor your melons.”1 The brief encounter described above is illustrative of the caustic sociopolitical polarization that consumed South Carolina in the 1880s and 1890s, as white citizens squared off against each other in political camps with seemingly zero chance of compromise or reconciliation. From a national perspective, since the end of Reconstruction—and the end of so-called “Negro domination”—the Palmetto State had 1This story is recounted in “Outcome of Tillmanism,” Anderson Intelligencer, August 17, 1892. 2 been a solid one-party bastion, Democratic and devoted to a paternalistic, yet unquestionable white supremacy.
By 1890, however, Benjamin Ryan Tillman’s ascendency to the governor’s chair had sundered the fragile bonds that had held together whites of disparate economic interests and classes. With little exception, South Carolinians were either “Tillmanites” or “Anti-Tillmanites”—also known respectively as Reformers or Conservatives. Evidently, so entrenched was the dichotomy that even watermelons were not immune from inheriting the stigma of their producer’s politics. “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman launched his political career in 1885 by verbally assaulting those wealthy and influential businessmen, lowcountry planters, and effete “dandies” that he insisted bent the state government against the interest of “simon-pure” farmers.
According to Tillman, Conservative leaders—elites who succeeded former Confederate general and governor, Wade Hampton, after “Redemption” in 1876—had encouraged corporate greed and kept a stranglehold on political offices for their own benefit, all at the expense of common farmers. Despite the fact that Tillman was a wealthy owner of more acreage than most farmers could ever dream of, and that his closest advisors were often businessmen and lawyers, his greatest electoral support came from the economically burdened white farmers of the upcountry. Throughout the late 1880s and 1890s, small farmers across the region struggled with scarce credit, falling crop prices, rising shipping rates, and periodic droughts and infestations. Accordingly, many latched on to the Tillman train, possibly because he focused the blame for their situation on someone other than themselves.2 2 For description of Ben Tillman and his administration, see Francis Butler Simkins, Pitchfork Ben Tillman: South Carolinian with a new Introduction by Orville Vernon Burton (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), original text 1944, Louisiana State University Press; Stephen Kantrowitz, Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 3 Many farmers across the South and West sought to alleviate these strains through economic cooperation, and then through political activity.
In South Carolina, Tillman effectively co-opted the agricultural reform momentum—embodied in the Farmers’ Alliance and Populist Party—sweeping other southern and western states. Instead of flocking to the ranks of the Populists, the overwhelming majority of white farmers in South Carolina rested their hopes not on a third party, but on Tillman and his “Reform” Democrats. Conservative critics lamented Tillman’s exploitation of class divisions within white society. An Anderson newspaper editor bemoaned3: Factory hands are taught to distrust their employers; that they are dishonest, oppressive, cruel, tyrannical.
Laborers are taught that employers will cheat and defraud them. Country people are taught that their greatest enemies are town people, whether they live in a large or a small town. It is a fearful campaign of education, and it will require years of patient and conservative work to efface the evil that is being accomplished.4 Many of Tillman’s political foes considered him little more than a demagogue, and modern scholars generally agree that he was a fanatical racist, lower-class agitator, and political opportunist—one whose only effective “reform” was entrenching white supremacy in South Carolina for the better part of the twentieth century. To a great degree, these assessments are valid.
Tillman earned those labels through his violent rhetoric and tireless efforts to disfranchise African Americans. He also called for reforms 2000); Stephen Kantrowitz, “Ben Tillman and Hendrix McLane, Agrarian Rebels: White Manhood, “The Farmers,” and the Limits of Southern Populism,” The Journal of Southern History 66:3 (2000); Walter Edgar, South Carolina: A History, (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998) 430-452; William J. Cooper, The Conservative Regime, South Carolina, 1887-1890 (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), David Duncan Wallace, The History of South Carolina (New York: American Historical Society, Inc.,1934), Volume 3; William Watts Ball, The State that Forgot: South Carolina’s Surrender to Democracy (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1932). 3 For detailed examinations of Populism and the Farmer’s Alliance see: John D.
Hicks, The Populist Revolt: A History of the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1931); Lawrence Goodwyn, The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Robert C. McMath, Populist Vanguard: A History of the Southern Farmer’s Alliance (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975); Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 4 Anderson Intelligencer, August 17, 1892 4 that many of his contemporaries and modern historians have deemed insufficient to meet the needs of the farmers he supposedly represented.