Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T13:34:06.449Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Dark Tactics”: Black Politics in the 1887 Texas Prohibition Campaign

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Gregg Cantrell
Gregg Cantrell
Affiliation:
Gregg Cantrell isAssistant Professor of History at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas 77341, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Notes and Comment
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , April 1991 , pp. 85 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The standard history of southern politics for the late nineteenth century remains Woodward, C. Vann, Origins of the New South, 1877–1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951).Google Scholar For Texas, see Barr, Alwyn, Reconstruction to Reform: Texas Politics, 1876–1906 (Austin & London: University of Texas Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Rice, Lawrence D., The Negro in Texas, 1874–1900 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

2 Department of the Interior, Census Office, Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890. Part I. – Population. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1892), 468–69.Google Scholar

3 Barr, , Reconstruction to Reform, 85–88Google Scholar; Ivy, H. A., Rum on the Run in Texas (Dallas: Temperance Publishing Co., 1910), 30–31Google Scholar; Hazel, Sybal, “Statewide Prohibition Campaigns in Texas” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Texas Technological College, 1942), 21–22.Google Scholar

4 Democrats James Hogg, James Throckmorton, Oran Roberts, and Roger Q. Mills also opposed prohibition.

5 Barr, , Reconstruction to Reform, 89–91Google Scholar; Hazel, , “Statewide Prohibition Campaigns,” 30–32, 37–41.Google Scholar

6 The Republican gubernatorial candidate in 1886 received 65,236 votes; see Barr, , Reconstruction to Reform, 98.Google Scholar

7 Barr, , Reconstruction to Reform, 91–92Google Scholar; Hare, Maud Cuney, Norris Wright Cuney: A Tribune of the Black People (New York: Crisis Publishing Company, 1913), 76–77.Google Scholar

8 Cantrell, David Gregg, “The Limits of Southern Dissent: The Lives of Kenneth and John B. Rayner” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Texas A&M University, 1988).Google Scholar

9 Quoted in Hazel, , “Statewide Prohibition Campaigns,” 24.Google Scholar

10 Rayner, J. B. to Carroll, B. H., 17 03 1887Google Scholar, in the Antonio, SanExpress, 27 07 1887.Google Scholar This letter appeared in a number of anti-prohibition newspapers in the state.

11 Rayner, J. B. to Carroll, B. H., 17 03 1887.Google Scholar

12 Antonio, SanNew Era, 2 06 1887Google Scholar; Waco, Examiner, 10, 18 06 1887Google Scholar; Dallas, Morning News, 18 06 1887Google Scholar; Galveston, Daily News 27 08 1887.Google Scholar

13 Rayner, J. B. to Carroll, B. H. 17 03 1887Google Scholar; Cantrell, , “The Limits of Southern Dissent,” 239, 337–42.Google Scholar

14 Waco, Examiner, 7 06 1887.Google Scholar

15 Barr, Alwyn, “Melvin Wade,” The Handbook of Texas, ed. Webb, Walter Prescott, Carroll, H. Bailey, and Cutrer, Thomas W. (3rd ed. rev.; Austin: Texas State Historical Association, forthcoming).Google Scholar

16 Waco, Examiner, 12, 31 05, 4 08 1887Google Scholar; Victoria, Advocate 9 07 1887.Google Scholar

17 Waco, Examiner, 31 05 1887.Google Scholar

18 Point, WillsChronicle, 21 07 1887.Google Scholar

19 Waco, Examiner, 26 05, 9, 10, 28, 29, June 1887.Google Scholar

20 Waco, Examiner, 19 06 1887Google Scholar, quoting the Calvert Vox Populi. The letter was published in papers such as the Antonio, SanExpress, 27 07 1887Google Scholar; the Point, WillsChronicle, 7 07 1887Google Scholar; the Waco, Examiner, 14 06 1887Google Scholar, and the Waco, True Blue, 1 07 1887.Google Scholar For examples of the commentary inspired by the letter, see the Waco, Examiner, 18, 26, 28 06, 2 07, 28 08, 2 09 1887.Google Scholar

21 Waco, True Blue, 1 07 1887Google Scholar; Calvert Courier, quoted in the Waco, Examiner, 18 06 1887Google Scholar; Waco, Examiner, 10, 18 06, 2 07 1887.Google Scholar

22 Galveston, Daily News, 18 06 1887Google Scholar; Antonio, SanExpress, 1, 14, 29 07 1887Google Scholar; Victoria, Advocate, 9 07 1887Google Scholar; Antonio, SanNew Era, 2 06 1887Google Scholar; Waco, True Blue, 1 07 1877Google Scholar; Hazel, , “Statewide Prohibition Campaigns,” 48.Google Scholar

23 Statistical analysis reveals that an estimated 19 percent of eligible blacks supported the amendment, with 7 percent not voting. Among native-born whites, an estimated 33 percent voted yes to prohibition, another 33 percent voted no, and 34 percent did not vote. Among foreign-born voters, 64 percent opposed the amendment with the rest not voting. These percentages are derived through the use of ecological regression. For a complete discussion of the method, see Kousser, J. Morgan, “Ecological Regression and the Analysis of Past Politics,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 4 (Autumn, 1973), 237–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The number of eligible voters was estimated by using the adult male populations of each county in 1890. To adjust for the varying populations of counties, variables used in the regression equation were weighted by the number of adult males. In calculating voter transition probabilities, logically but not statistically impossible estimates falling outside the 0–100% range were arbitrarily set at their respective minimum or maximum limits, and the values of the remaining estimates were adjusted according to the restraints of the contingency table. The most accurate source for county-level election returns is Ivy, , Rum on the Run, 32–34Google Scholar (the only apparent mistake in this source is the “For” vote in Haskell County, which probably should be 73 instead of 23). Two other reports of the returns – Hazel, , “Statewide Prohibition Campaigns,” 129–34Google Scholar; and Texas Almanac and Industrial Guide (Dallas, 1911), 92–93Google Scholar — contain more inaccuracies. The author is indebted to D. Scott Barton of Texas A&M University for assisting him with this analysis.

24 Quoted in Hare, , Norris Wright Cuney, 77.Google Scholar

25 Among them were Marion Martin, Buck Walton, Thomas L. Nugent, and Wash Jones. Martin, Walton, and Nugent all sought statewide office as Populists. Jones had served two terms as a Greenbacker congressman and twice in the 1880s had made independent bids for the governorship. He went on to ally himself with the Populists and make a final run for congress in the 1890s. For the activities of Martin, Walton, Nugent, and Jones before and during the Populist era, see Barr, , Reconstruction to ReformGoogle Scholar; Martin, Roscoe, The People's Party in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1933).Google Scholar On Nugent, see Alvord, Wayne, “T. L. Nugent, Texas Populist,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 57 (07, 1953), 65–81Google Scholar; Life Work of Thomas L. Nugent, ed. Nugent, Catherine (Stephenville, Texas: C. Nugent, 1896)Google Scholar; Pollack, Norman, The Just Polity: Populism, Law, and Human Welfare (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 266–307.Google Scholar On Jone's final campaign, see Cantrell, , “The Limits of Southern Dissent,” 313.Google Scholar

26 Cantrell, , “The Limits of Southern Dissent,” 313Google Scholar; Waco, Examiner, 28 08 1887.Google Scholar

27 Martin, , The People's Party in Texas, 132Google Scholar; Cantrell, , “The Limits of Southern Dissent,” 337–42Google Scholar

28 Dallas, Morning News, 18 08 1891Google Scholar; Goodwyn, Lawrence, Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 285–91.Google Scholar

29 Cantrell, Gregg and Barton, D. Scott, “Texas Populists and the Failure of Biracial Politics,” Journal of Southern History, 55 (11 1989), 659–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar