The New South Part 5

Most inst.i.tutions for negroes desire to do work of college grade. Some with not a single pupil above the elementary grades nevertheless proudly call themselves colleges. Other so-called colleges have secondary pupils but none in college cla.s.ses.

Thirty-three inst.i.tutions do have a total of 1643 students in college cla.s.ses and 994 students in professional courses, but these same schools enroll more than 10,000 pupils in elementary and secondary grades. Some of them are attempting to maintain college cla.s.ses for less than 5 per cent of their enrollment, and the teaching force gives a disproportionate share of time to such students. Two of these thirty-three inst.i.tutions have nearly all the professional students, and two have nearly half the total number of college students. Only three can properly be called colleges-Howard University at Washington, Fisk University, and Meharry Medical College at Nashville, Tennessee.

While several of the Southern States have greatly increased their expenditures for schools since 1910, in some cases more than doubling them, the proportion devoted to negro schools has not been greatly increased, if indeed it has been increased at all. For example, in North Carolina, which a.s.signs for negro education much more than the average of the States containing any considerable proportion of negroes, the total paid to negro teachers in 1910-11 was $340,856, as against $1,715,994 paid to white teachers. Five years later, negro teachers received $536,272, but white teachers received $3,258,352. In other words, in the former year all the negro teachers received one-fifth as much as all the whites, while five years later they received about one-sixth; that is, something less than one-third the total number of children received about one-seventh of the money expended for instruction. A part of this wide difference in expenditure may be explained or even defended. The districts or townships which have voted additional local taxes are usually those in which there are comparatively few negroes. The average salary paid to negro teachers, although low, is as large as can be earned in most of the occupations open to them, and any sudden or large increase would neither immediately raise the standard of competency nor insure a much larger proportion of the ability of the race. The percentage of school attendance of negro children is lower than in the case of white children. Very few negro children, whether because of economic pressure, lack of ability, or lack of desire for knowledge, complete even the fifth grade. Among negroes there is little real demand for high school instruction, which is more expensive than elementary instruction. Therefore, the proportion of the total funds spent for negro education might properly be less than their numbers would indicate. If the proportionate amount spent today for the instruction of certain racial groups of the foreign population could be separated from the total, it would be found that less than the average is spent upon them for the same reasons. However, when all allowances have been made, it is obvious that the negro is receiving less than a fair share of the appropriations made by the Southern States for education.

The inadequate public schools for negroes have been excused or justified upon the ground that private and church schools are supplying the need. This is true in some localities, for the great majority of negro private schools, no matter by what name they are called, are really doing only elementary or secondary work. These schools, however, only touch the beginnings of the problem and have served in some degree to lessen the sense of responsibility for negro education on the part of the Southern whites. Where there is one of these schools supported by outside philanthropy, the public school is likely to be less adequately equipped and supported than in the towns where no such school exists. But at best, these schools can reach only a small proportion of the children.

The difficulty lies in public sentiment. As a rule the tax rate is fixed by the State but collected by the county, and the county board divides the amount plus any local taxes levied, among the schools. Districts of the same number of pupils may receive widely varying amounts, according to the grade of instruction demanded. Generally, a part of the fund is apportioned per capita, and the remainder is divided according to the supposed special need of the districts. A white district which demands high grade teachers is given the necessary money, if possible. Few colored schools have advanced pupils, and only sufficient funds for a cheaper teacher or teachers may be provided. Colored districts are often made too large. The white districts ask so much that little more than the per capita appropriation is left for the colored schools. The negroes are politically powerless and public sentiment does not demand that money be taken from white children to be given to negroes.

Mention should be made of several funds which have been established by philanthropists for the education of the negro. The John F. Slater Fund, founded by a gift of $1,000,000 in 1882, has now reached $1,750,000. The greater part of the income is devoted to the encouragement of training schools. No schools are established by the Fund itself, but it cooperates with the local authorities and the General Education Board. The Jeanes Fund of $1,000,000 established by a Quaker lady, Miss Anna T. Jeanes of Philadelphia, expends the greater part of its income in helping to pay the salaries of county supervisors for rural schools. These are usually young colored women, who work under the direction of the county superintendents and visit the rural schools. They give simple talks upon hygiene and sanitation, encourage better care of schoolhouses and grounds, stimulate interest in gardening and simple home industries, and encourage self help. Their work has been exceedingly valuable. The Phelps Stokes Fund of $900,000, founded by Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, is not wholly devoted to the negroes of the South. It has been expended chiefly in the study of the negro problem, in founding fellowships, and in making possible the valuable report on negro education already mentioned. In 1914, Mr. Julius Rosenwald of Chicago offered to every negro rural community wishing to erect a comfortable and adequate school building a sum not to exceed $300, provided that the community would obtain from private or public funds at least as much more.

The interest of the General Education Board is not limited either to negro or even to Southern education, but it has done much for both. This great foundation has paid salaries of state supervisors of negro schools in several States and has cooperated with the Jeanes Fund in maintaining county supervisors of negro schools. It has appropriated over half a million dollars to industrial schools and about one-fourth as much to negro colleges. Farm demonstration work, of which more is said elsewhere, is also of aid to the negroes. The Board has realized, however, that the development of negro schools is dependent upon the economic and educational progress of the whites, and has contributed most to white schools or to objects of a nature intended to benefit the whole population.

All testimony points to the conclusion that there is now real enthusiasm for education among the Southern whites. The school terms are being extended, often by means of local taxes levied in addition to the minimum fixed by the State; the quality of the teaching is improving; and popular interest is growing. In many sections, the school is developing into a real community center. Good buildings are replacing the shacks formerly so common. North Carolina is proud of the fact that for more than fourteen years an average of more than one new school a day has been built from plans approved by the educational department. More and more attention is being paid to the surroundings of the buildings. School gardens are common, and some schools even cultivate an acre or two of ground, the proceeds of which go to furnish apparatus or supplies. Many of the Southern towns and cities have schools which need not fear comparison with those in other sections.

The crying need is more money which can come only in two ways, by reforming the system of taxation, and by increasing the amount of taxable property. All through the South the chief reliance is a general property tax with local a.s.sessors who are either incompetent or else desirous of keeping down a.s.sessments. The proportion of a.s.sessment to value varies widely, but on the average it can hardly be more than fifty per cent; and, as invariably happens, the a.s.sessment of the more valuable properties is proportionately less than that of the small farm or the mechanic's home. The South is growing richer, but the conflict with the North set the section back thirty or forty years, while the remainder of the country was increasing in wealth. Even today the South must build two school systems without the aid of government land grants, which have had so much to do with the successful development of the schools of the Western States, and without the commercial prosperity which has come to the East. The rate of taxation levied for schools in many Southern communities is now among the highest in the United States.

During the past ten years, hundreds of public high schools have been established, more than half of which are rural. Some still follow the old curriculum, but a new inst.i.tution known as the "farm life school" is now being developed. Many other schools have such a department attached and usually give instruction in household economics as well. The General Education Board estimates that $20,000,000 has been spent for improved buildings since the appointment of professors of secondary education in Southern universities. This, by the way, is one of the most useful contributions of the Board. These men, chosen by the inst.i.tutions themselves as regular members of the faculty but with their salaries paid by an appropriation from the Board, may give a course or two in the university, but their chief duties are to coordinate the work of the high schools and to serve as educational missionaries. They go up and down the States, exhorting, advising, and stimulating the people, and the fruits of their work are present on every hand.

The South has a superabundance of colleges. Some of them have honorable records; others represent faith and hope or denominational zeal rather than accomplishment. Some of the older inst.i.tutions were kept open during War and Reconstruction but others were forced to close. With the return of white supremacy old inst.i.tutions have been revived and new ones have been founded. The number of students has increased, but the financial difficulties of the inst.i.tutions have hardly diminished. Few had any endowment worth considering, and the so-called state inst.i.tutions received very small appropriations or none at all. Good preparatory schools were few and, since the colleges were dependent upon tuition fees, many students with inadequate preparation were leniently admitted. Preparatory departments were established for those students who could not possibly be admitted to college cla.s.ses. Necessarily the quality of work was low, though many inst.i.tutions struggled for the maintenance of respectable standards. One college president frankly said: "We are liberal about letting young men into the Freshman cla.s.s, but particular about letting them out." It was not uncommon for half of a first year cla.s.s to be found deficient and turned back at the end of the year, or dismissed as hopeless. Obviously this was a wasteful method of determining competency.

Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, founded in 1873 by the gifts of "Commodore" Vanderbilt, was the first Southern inst.i.tution with anything approaching an adequate endowment and was the first to insist upon thorough preparation for entrance, though it was compelled to organize a sub-freshman cla.s.s in the beginning. Its policy had considerable influence both upon college standards and upon the growth of private preparatory schools. The development of public schools, for a time, had made the work of colleges in general more difficult, because they supplanted scores of private academies which had done pa.s.sably well the work of college preparation and yet were not themselves able to prepare students for college in the first years of their existence. For years it was difficult in many localities for a young man to secure proper preparation, and the total of poorly prepared students applying for admission to the colleges increased. The number of towns and cities which have established high schools or high school departments has since increased rapidly, and today a larger and larger proportion of college students comes from public schools.

Since 1900, the resources of the colleges have greatly increased. States which appropriated a few thousand dollars for higher education in the early nineties now appropriate ten or even twenty times as much to their universities, agricultural colleges, and normal and technical schools for women, and have appropriated millions for new buildings. Many of the denominational colleges have obtained substantial endowments. The General Education Board up to 1914 had subscribed over $3,000,000 to Southern colleges and universities on condition that the inst.i.tutions raise at least three times as much more. Southern men who have acc.u.mulated wealth are realizing their social responsibility. Several recent gifts of a million dollars or more are not included in the sum mentioned above, and many smaller gifts or bequests likewise.

Standards of work have been raised with increasing income. As elsewhere the effect of the reports of the Carnegie Foundation has been patent. The stronger inst.i.tutions have brought up their requirements to the minimum, on paper at least, and to a great extent in fact. Some of the weaker inst.i.tutions have dropped the pretense of doing college work; others have accepted the position of junior colleges doing two years of college work and giving no degrees. The States exercise little or no supervision over the quality of work done for college degrees, and some inst.i.tutions continue to grant diplomas for what is really secondary work, but the fact that they are not up to the standard is known and the management is generally apologetic.

No other phase of Southern life is more hopeful and more encouraging than the educational revival. True, judged by the standards of the richer States, the terms of the rural schools are short and the pay of the teachers is small; but both are being increased, and no schools are exercising more wholesome influence. The high schools are neither so numerous nor so well equipped as in some other States, but nowhere else is such evident progress being made. There are no universities in the South which count their income in millions, but the number of inst.i.tutions adequately equipped to do efficient work is already large and increasing. The spirit of faculty and students is admirable, and the contact of the inst.i.tutions and the people of the Southern States is increasingly close and full of promise.

CHAPTER IX

THE SOUTH OF TODAY

The South of the present is a changing South with its face toward the future rather than the past. Nevertheless the dead hand is felt by all the people a part of the time, and some of the people are never free from its paralyzing touch. Old prejudices, the remembrance of past grievances, and antipathies long cherished now and then a.s.sert themselves in the most unexpected fashion. The Southerner, no matter how much he may pride himself upon being liberal and broad, is likely to make certain reservations and limitations in his att.i.tude. There are some questions upon which he is not open to argument, certain subjects which he cannot discuss freely and dispa.s.sionately. Some Southerners have so many of these reservations that conversation with them is difficult unless one instinctively understands their psychology and is willing to avoid certain subjects. The past has made so powerful an impression upon them that it has affected their whole att.i.tude of mind.

Time, travel, a.s.sociation, engrossing work, and economic prosperity have weakened many of these prejudices and antipathies, however, and the Southerner is becoming free. There are individuals who will always be bound by the past; there are some men, and more women, who are yet "unreconstructed"; there are neighborhoods and villages where men and women yet live in the past and absolutely refuse to attempt to adjust themselves cheerfully to changed and changing conditions. This is not true of the Southern people as a whole. In fact there is danger that the younger generation will think too little of the past. Much of the Old South is worthy of preservation, and it is never safe for a country or a section to break too abruptly with its older life.

Economically the South has prospered in proportion as the new spirit has ruled. The question of secession is dead, and the man who refuses today to treat it as past history but grows excited in discussing it is not likely to be successful in his business or profession. The men of the New South spend little time in discussing the relative wisdom of Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs or the reasons for the failure of the Confederacy. The Southerners accept the results of the War, and all except a negligible minority are convinced that the preservation of the Union was for the best. To be sure they believe, partly through knowledge but more largely through absorption, that the Confederate soldier was the best fighting man ever known and that the War might have been won if the civil government had been wiser, but on the whole they are not sorry that secession failed. They thrill even today to Dixie, and The Bonnie Blue Flag, but this feeling is now purely emotional.

All the Southern States have felt, though unequally, the effects of industrialism. The South Atlantic States have been most influenced by this movement, but even Mississippi and Arkansas have been affected. In many sections the traveler is seldom out of sight of the factory chimney. Some towns, in appearance and spirit, might easily seem to belong to a Middle Western environment but for the presence of the negro and the absence of the foreign born. The population in these Southern towns is still overwhelmingly American. In no States except Maryland and Texas did the foreign born number as many as 100,000 in 1910, and Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina each had less than 10,000 at that time. The highest percentage of foreign born was 8.6 per cent in Delaware, the lowest 0.3 per cent in North Carolina. In the South as a whole the proportion of foreign born whites was only 2.5 per cent.

The laborers in the Southern shops and mills today are not only native born but almost altogether Southern born. The South has been a great loser through interstate migration. Other sections also have lost but the excess of those departing has been replaced by the immigration of foreign born. Comparatively few have come to the South from other sections except in Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and fewer foreign born have settled in the South. As a result, the percentage of increase of population is less for the South, if Oklahoma be omitted, than for the United States as a whole. Many of the laborers are of rural origin or are only a generation removed from the farm. They preserve the individualistic att.i.tude of the rural mind and have learned little of collective action. Labor unions have made small progress except in a few skilled trades and cla.s.s consciousness has not developed in the South.

The important industries have thus far been few and they have kept rather close to the original raw material. The South does not spin all the cotton it produces, does not weave all the yarn it spins, and does not manufacture into clothing any considerable quant.i.ty of the cloth it weaves. The greater part of both yarn and cloth is coa.r.s.e, though some mills do finer work. Little bleaching or printing, however, is done. The South is a land of curious economic contrasts. It produces sugar but buys confectionery. It produces immense quant.i.ties of lumber but works up comparatively little, and this mainly into simple forms. It produces iron and steel in considerable quant.i.ties but has few machine shops where really delicate work can be done. It does not manufacture motor cars, electric or even textile machinery or machine tools, nor does it make watches or firearms in appreciable quant.i.ties. In short, the South carries some of the most important raw materials only a step or two toward their ultimate form and depends upon other parts of the country for the finished article.

Years ago the story was told of a Georgia funeral at which that State furnished only the corpse and the grave. Georgia, and other States too, can do much more today, if the funeral be not too elaborate. It can furnish a cotton shroud, each year of finer quality. The knitting mills of the South are able to supply an increasing proportion of the population with hose and underclothing, and a number of the mills are gaining a national trade through advertising. If demanded, Southern-made shoes may be found, and a Southern-made coffin may be drawn on a Southern-made wagon by Southern-bred horses and perhaps, though improbably, in harness of local manufacture also.

The South was once the richest section of the Union. The vicissitudes of the Civil War rendered it poor, but now it is rapidly growing richer and since the beginning of the Great War has shown a phenomenal acc.u.mulation of new capital. During this great struggle some of the cotton mills made in a single month profits as large as they were formerly accustomed to make in a year. Even though the farmer received for his cotton much more than usual, the price of cloth would still have yielded a profit to the manufacturer if cotton had been twice as high. Other enterprises have likewise been profitable, and when normal conditions are restored this capital will seek new investment. While prophecy is dangerous it seems probable that manufacturing in the South will grow as never before; and new forms of investment must be found, as the rural districts cannot furnish any greatly increased supply of labor for cotton manufacturing though the towns can supply some adult labor for other forms of industry.

The labor question is beginning to grow serious in some localities, though it is difficult to discover whether the problem is chiefly one of getting labor at all or of getting it at something like the wages formerly paid. Apparently, however, the industrial growth of the South has been more rapid than that of population. Heretofore the farmer has had little difficulty in obtaining some sort of a.s.sistance in cultivating his land, and this abundance of labor has lessened the demand for agricultural machinery. Now the migration of the negro to the North has created a shortage of labor which must force the farmer to purchase machinery. Too much man and horse power has been employed upon Southern farms in proportion to the results achieved. The South has been producing a large value per acre but a small value per individual. If the South is to become permanently prosperous, fewer persons must do the work and must even increase the production.

A practical cotton-picking machine would help to solve some of the South's problems, as any family can plant and cultivate after a fashion much more cotton than it can pick. Many attempts to produce such a machine have been made, but simplicity, efficiency, and cheapness have not yet been attained. Like the reaper and binder, a machine of this sort is needed for only a small portion of the year, but in that short period the need is extreme. Such a machine would revolutionize the tenant system, would permit a larger production of food, and at the same time would set labor free for other occupations. Meanwhile the general rate of wages in agriculture has risen and must rise still further, as it has done in other occupations. Any student of economics who draws his conclusions from observation of life as well as from books realizes how large a part custom plays in determining wages, and hitherto farm wages have been very low and labor has been inefficient in the South.

The economic future of the South must rest upon the advance of the farmer. This thesis has already been developed at length in another chapter, where the present unsatisfactory organization and conditions of agriculture were also discussed. Improvement, however, is already becoming evident. Cotton furnishes two-fifths of the value of all farm products, with corn, hay, tobacco, and wheat following in the order named. Gradually the West is ceasing to be the granary and the smokehouse of the Southern farmer, but the South does not yet feed itself. In 1917 only Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Oklahoma produced a surplus of wheat, though it is estimated that the South as a whole reduced its deficiency by more than 35,000,000 bushels. The abnormal prices of agricultural products since 1915 have brought many farmers out of debt and set them on the road toward prosperity, but many have not yet realized that they are no longer objects of commiseration. Though the high prices of war times have brought prosperity to the farmer, the crying necessity today is a larger production per man employed.

The political, as well as the economic, condition of the South today is full of interest. Politically the common man is in control, and as a rule he selects men of his own type to represent him. The primary was almost universal in the South when the West was only thinking of it as a radical innovation. The day of aristocratic domination is over, if indeed it ever really existed. In many instances descent from well-known ancestors who have held high positions has proved a positive detriment to a political candidate of today. Some of the successful politicians, as might be expected, are demagogues. States differ in the number of politicians of this type, and the same State may vary from year to year. It may at the same time send a demagogue and a statesman to the Senate. Men are permitted to hold offices, both national and state, for longer periods than formerly, and, as a result, in recent Democratic Congresses Southern men have held the most important chairmanships.[1]

[Footnote 1: North Carolina, for example, had in the 65th Congress, the chairmanship of the Committees on Finance and on Rules in the Senate, and on Ways and Means, Rules, Judiciary, and Rivers and Harbors in the House, besides other chairmanships of less account. Seldom in the whole history of the country has the representation of any State been so powerful.]

That the Southern representation in Congress is equal in ability, culture, and character to that of the Old South or to that of even thirty years ago can hardly be seriously maintained. There are in Congress a few men today who recall the best traditions of Southern leadership; there are more who are mediocre and parochial. For the most part they come from law offices in country towns, and have the virtues and the limitations of their environment. They are honest financially, if not intellectually, and do not consciously yield to "the interests." They are correct in their private lives and likely to be somewhat bigoted. Many are convinced that cities are essentially wicked and conceive them to be inhabited by vampires and parasites. Few can think in national terms, and fewer have either knowledge or comprehension of international relations. For a generation the South was excluded from any real partic.i.p.ation in national affairs and was wholly occupied with local questions. It is therefore difficult for such men to realize the present position of the United States in world politics. With much perturbation of spirit the rank and file followed the President in the steps leading up to the Great War, though some of the would-be leaders attempted to rebel. On the other hand, some of the most valuable men in the great crisis were Southerners.

The dominant party in the South is called Democratic, but the name has little of its original significance today. The representative is likely to follow the sentiment of his district if he can discover it. Some of the Southern Democrats advocate doctrines which are far removed from traditional democracy, for Populistic ideas have not entirely died out and some of the farmers still demand special privileges, which, however, they would be the first to deny to any one else. Democracy in the South really means the white man's party, and the Democratic doctrines are those in which it is thought the majority of the white men of the State or section believe for the time. Though the negro is no longer a voting power, the malign influence of the negro question persists.

Since the South as a whole favors prohibition of the liquor traffic the representatives of the people are almost unanimously in favor of prohibition, forgetting all const.i.tutional scruples and all questions of state rights. The sentiment for woman suffrage is not yet overwhelming and consequently, as might be surmised, conscientious scruples prevent representatives from voting for the extension of the franchise. In two States, however, the friends of woman suffrage, though not strong enough to pa.s.s a const.i.tutional amendment, have realized their aim by a brilliant coup. Since most elections are practically settled in the primaries, the legislatures of Texas and Arkansas gave women the right to vote in such elections. In other words, women were given the right to help nominate candidates, though they are excluded from the formal elections. Whether these acts will stand in the courts has not been determined. Missouri and Tennessee have recently given national suffrage to women, and Oklahoma has given full suffrage.

The negro has been practically eliminated as a voter, but the decision of the Supreme Court in the Oklahoma case may make necessary the revision of some state const.i.tutions. Enough restrictions remain, however, to make white supremacy reasonably secure for the present. As the aim is one upon which the white South is practically agreed, some other expedients will be devised if those now in use must be discarded. There is absolutely no desire for a wholesale restoration of the negro vote, though, of course, Republican conventions denounce the disfranchising acts and const.i.tutional amendments. If the control of the Southern States should be gained by the Republican party, unlimited negro suffrage would hardly be restored unless such action were forced by the party in the nation at large. In the last extremity the South would suffer loss of representation rather than face the consequences of unrestricted negro suffrage.

Socially the South is in a state of ferment. Old standards are pa.s.sing, some of them very rapidly, and the younger generation is inclined to smile at some of the att.i.tudes of the old. The "typical Southerner" who nourishes within the pages of F. Hopkinson Smith and Thomas Nelson Page is extremely rare outside of them. Most of the real Southern colonels are dead, and the others are too busy running plantations or cotton mills to spend much time discussing genealogy, making pretty speeches, or talking about their honor. Not so many colonels are made as formerly, and one may travel far before he meets an individual who fits the popular idea of the type. He is likely to meet more men who are cold, hard, and astute, for the New South has developed some perfect specimens of the type whose natural habitat had been supposed to be Ulster or the British Midlands-religious, narrow, stubborn, and very shrewd.

A sense of social responsibility is developing in the South. Kindness has always been shown to the unfortunate and the afflicted, but it has been exhibited toward individuals by individuals. If a Southerner heard of a case of distress in his neighborhood, he was quick to respond. Real neighborliness has always existed, but the idea of responsibility for a cla.s.s was slow to develop. Such an idea is growing, however. More attention has been given to the condition of jails and almshouses during the last ten years than in the whole preceding century. To be sure, the section is now becoming rich enough to afford the luxury of paupers, but the interest in socialized humanitarian endeavor lies deeper. Perhaps the fact that negroes formed the larger part of the criminal and dependent cla.s.ses had something to do with the past neglect. The Old Testament doctrine that the criminal should suffer the consequences of his act has had its effect, and the factor of expense has not been forgotten. Some of the States still permit county commissioners to commit the care of the poor to the lowest bidder. On the other hand the poorhouse has been transformed into a "Home for the Aged and Infirm" in some States, and inspections of public inst.i.tutions by the grand jury are becoming more than merely cursory. State boards of charities are being established, and men have even attacked members of their own political parties on the charge of incompetence, cruelty, or neglect of duty as keepers of prisons or almshouses. Hundreds of towns have their a.s.sociated charities, and scores have visiting nurses. Where there is only one nurse, she visits negroes as well as whites, but many towns support one or more for negroes as well.

In former days orphans were "bound out," if no relatives would take them, and in that case they might not always be properly treated. At the present time not only States and munic.i.p.alities support asylums, but religious denominations and fraternal orders manage many well-conducted inst.i.tutions. The problem of the juvenile delinquent is being recognized, as several States already have inst.i.tutions for his care. So far little has been done for the young negro offender, whose home training is likely to be most deficient and who needs firm but kindly discipline; but the consciousness of responsibility for him also is developing. Increasing prosperity alone cannot account for the multiplication of these agencies for social betterment. A new social interest and a new att.i.tude of mind are revealed in these activities.

There are still some communities where social position is based upon birth and where the old families still control; but these regions are becoming less numerous. The Old South was never quite so aristocratic as the North believed, and today the white South is much more nearly a democracy than New England. Even in 1860 this was true of some parts of the South, as compared with some parts of New England. The rural South was always democratic except in comparatively limited areas, and it is so everywhere today. In those communities which have felt the new industrial spirit the question of birth plays little part. Any presentable young man can go where he chooses. In such communities the tendency-apparently inevitable in industrial societies-to base social distinctions upon wealth and business success is beginning to show itself. The plutocrats, however, are not yet numerous enough to form a society of their own and must perforce find their a.s.sociates among their fellow townsmen.

One does not lose social position in the South by engaging in business or by working with his hands. It may easily happen that in the afternoon you may purchase a collar or a pair of shoes from a young man whom you will meet in the evening at the house of the local magnate. The granddaughter of a former governor or justice of the Supreme Court comes home from her typewriter and her brother from the cotton mill or the lumber yard. Social life in a small town-and most Southern towns are small-is simple and unpretentious, although here too the influence of prosperity is beginning to be manifest. Social affairs are more elaborate than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and there is also less casual expression of informal hospitality. The higher prices of food and the increasing difficulties of the servant problem have doubtless put some restraint upon the spirit of hospitality but perhaps more important is the fact that more of the men must keep regular hours of business and that women are developing interests outside the home.

Social affairs are almost entirely in the hands of women. The older men come somewhat unwillingly to receptions in the evening, but the presence of a man at an afternoon tea is unusual. The Southerner of the small towns and cities puts away play with his adolescence. The professional man seldom advertises the fact that he has gone hunting or fishing for a day or a week, as it is thought to be not quite the thing for a lawyer to be away from his office for such a purpose. Golf has gained no foothold except in the larger towns, and even there the existence of the country club is often precarious. Few males except college youths will be seen on the tennis court, if indeed there be one even in a town of five thousand people. Professional men keep long hours, though they might be able to do all their work in half the time they spend in their offices.

The theory of the Old South contemplated different spheres of activity for men and women. The combined influence of St. Paul and Sir Walter Scott is responsible for a part of this theory, though its development was probably inevitable from the structure of society in the Old South. A woman's place was the home. As a girl she might live for enjoyment and spend her time in a round of visits, but she was expected to give up frivolity of all sorts when she married. Society in the South was almost entirely the concern of the unmarried. Women seldom took a prominent part in any organization, and a woman speaking in public was regarded as a great curiosity. Not so many years ago the missionary society, and perhaps the parsonage aid society, were almost the only organizations in which women took a part. In recent years church and educational organizations have multiplied, and today there are numerous women's clubs devoted to many different objects. Southern women are active in civic leagues, a.s.sociated charities, and other forms of community endeavor; they are prominent in various patriotic societies; and there are many suffrage societies. Where the laws permit, women are members of school boards; they often head organizations of teachers composed of both men and women, and at least one woman has been chosen mayor of a town.

Women have done more than the men to keep alive in the South the memories of the past. Perhaps because the women of the older generation suffered more than the men, they have been less willing to forget, and their daughters have imbibed some of the same feeling. The Daughters of the Confederacy have been more bitter than the Sons of Veterans or than the veterans themselves. The effect of recent events upon their psychology has been interesting. In the Great War their sons and grandsons were called to go overseas, and the national government was brought closer to them than at any other time for more than forty years. It is idle to insist that before this there had been any ardent affection in the South for the United States. There had been acceptance of the national situation, perhaps an intellectual acknowledgment that all may have been for the best, but no warm nationalism had been developed before the Great War came. Loyalty was pa.s.sive rather than active.

The closing of the chasm has been hailed many times, notably at the time of the Spanish War, but no keen observer has been deceived for a moment. The recent world crisis, however, seems to have swept aside all hindrances. Perhaps the people, and particularly the women, were unconsciously yearning for a country to love and were ready for a great wave of patriotism to carry them with it. During the week following the declaration of war more national flags were displayed in the South than had been shown in the memory of the oldest resident, for except on public buildings the national flag has not been commonly displayed. At this time houses which had never shown a flag were draped, and merchants were chided because they could not supply the demand.

Quite as a matter of course the president of the Daughters of the Confederacy became president of the Red Cross Auxiliary which was organized at once. Women were eager to receive instruction in folding bandages, and knitting became the order of the day. Women threw themselves with all their energy into various activities. Canteen work was organized if the town was a junction point, and every instalment of "selected men"-for the word "drafted" was rejected almost by common consent-was sent away with some evidence of the thoughtfulness of the women of their home town. Women have been prominent in raising money for the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A. and have done valiant service in selling War Savings Stamps and Liberty Bonds. There has been some shaking of heads, and some exponents of the sheltered life have criticized this invasion of what had been supposed to be the sphere of men, but the women have gone ahead. Indeed their alacrity has seemed to indicate that they are glad to have an excuse to throw aside the restraints which have hitherto bound them. Women and girls have approached men whom they did not know on the streets to ask for contributions or to urge the purchase of stamps or bonds, and only those who know the South can realize what a departure from traditional standards of feminine conduct such actions indicate. The business woman has been a familiar figure for years, but she was sheltered by the walls of her office or shop. On the street she was held to a certain code and was criticized if she failed to observe it. But here also the old order is changing and giving place to new.

The power of public opinion is very great in the South. While this may be true of rural or semi-rural communities in any part of the land, nowhere else does collective opinion exert such overwhelming force as in the Southern States. Perhaps this phenomenon is a survival from Reconstruction days and after. Since certain att.i.tudes toward the negro, for example, were defended on the ground of the necessity of protecting womanhood, a certain standard must be demanded from women, and every man claimed a sort of prescriptive right to a.s.sist in laying down rules for such conduct on her part. For a long time the women of the South, consciously or unconsciously, were subject to these unwritten rules. Today in increasing numbers the women, particularly the younger women, are declaring their independence by their conduct. It has not become a feminist revolt, for many have not thought out the situation and have not recognized the source of their restrictions. The statutes of some of the Southern States, moreover, still contain many of the old common law restrictions upon women's independence of action. More and more women are a.s.serting themselves, however, and are demanding the right to guide themselves. The negro woman has been held up as the reason for denying the vote to the white woman, but this excuse no longer is accepted willingly. Women are inquiring why the vote of the negro women should be any more of a menace than the vote of the negro man, and there seems to be no satisfactory answer. If the women make up their minds and agree, they will gain their ends.

Though women in the South as elsewhere form a majority of the church membership, they have not had equal rights in church administration. During 1918, several denominations granted full laity rights, though the bishops of the Southern Methodist Church referred the action of the General Conference back to the Annual Conferences. This is of course only temporary delay. An unusually large percentage of the adult population holds membership in one or other of the Protestant denominations. The Roman Catholics are reported as being in a majority in Louisiana, as might be expected owing to French descent, and in Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, and Texas the proportion is considerable. It is less in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. In Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, the proportion of Catholics is still smaller, though the latest (1918) official Catholic statistics for the even States last named show 7 bishops, 415 priests, 635 churches, and 211,000 Catholics. The princ.i.p.al denominational affiliations of the Southern people, white and black, are with the various Baptist or Methodist bodies, with a strong Presbyterian influence. In eleven of the Southern States the Baptists are by far the largest denomination, though the Methodists lead in two. These two denominations taken together are in a large majority in every State except Delaware, Maryland, and Louisiana. Presbyterians and Episcopalians are well distributed throughout the whole section and have exercised an influence altogether out of proportion to their numbers. Presbyterianism came in with the great Scotch-Irish migration of the eighteenth century, and though many of the blood have gone over to other denominations, the influence of the Shorter Catechism still persists. In the older States attempts were made to establish the Anglican Church in the colonial era, and the governing cla.s.ses were naturally affiliated with it.

Both these organizations had to give way to the great wave of religious enthusiasm which swept the section early in the nineteenth century. Baptist and Methodist missionaries, many of them unlettered but vigorous and powerful, went into the remotest districts and swept the population into their communions. They preached a narrow, strait-laced, Old Testament religion, but it went deep. They believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible, and so far as they could they interpreted it literally, laying emphasis upon the future, the rewards of the righteous, and the tortures of the d.a.m.ned. Life upon this earth was regarded as simply a preparation for the life to come. One is sometimes tempted to believe that these spiritual guides deprecated attempts to improve conditions here on earth lest men should grow to think less of a future abode. It is easy to understand why such a doctrine of future reward should have appealed to negroes, and it is perhaps not surprising that the poor upon the frontier likewise found comfort and solace in it. ears ago the social position of the great majority of the Methodists and Baptists was distinctly below that of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. In recent years many Methodists and Baptists have grown prosperous. Instead of being bare barns, their church edifices are often the most ornate and costly in the town or city. A Methodist or a Baptist can have none of the former feeling of martyrdom now, when in numbers and wealth his denomination is so powerful.[1]

[Footnote 1: Except these five, other church organizations have few members. There are a few Congregationalists, almost entirely the result of post-bellum missions to the negroes. White and negro Lutheran churches are scattered through the Southern States, and in Kentucky and Tennessee the Disciples are important. Here and there other denominations have gained a foothold, but their numbers are insignificant in the South as a whole.]

Though the evangelical religious teaching of former days has been modified and softened, it has been softened only and not superseded. The result of this emphasis upon the other world has been to make men look somewhat askance at worldly amus.e.m.e.nt. The idea so prevalent in other sections that the people of the South are convivial and mercurial in temperament is erroneous. It would be more nearly correct to say that gravity, amounting almost to austerity, is a distinguishing mark of Southerners. In any Southern gathering representing the people as a whole there is little mirth. There is much more Puritanism in the South today than remains in New England. The Sabbath is no longer observed so strictly as twenty years ago, perhaps, but only recently has it been considered proper to receive visits on Sunday or to drive into the country. As for Sunday golf or tennis, the average community would stand horror-struck at such a spectacle. Sermons are frequently preached against dancing, card-playing, and theater-going, and members have been dismissed from Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches for indulging in these forbidden amus.e.m.e.nts.

The older generation, however, is losing in the fight to maintain the old standards of conduct and belief. In spite of disapprobation, bridge clubs flourish and the young people will dance and go to the theater, though even yet most Southern cities are known as "poor show towns." Today men go to the post office on Sunday, read the Sunday papers, and ride on Sunday trains. The motor car makes its appearance on Sunday, though it would be interesting to know how many of those riding really feel conscience free, for many who have liberal ideas still have Calvinistic nerves. Young ministers occasionally preach sermons for which they would have been charged with heresy not many years ago and openly read books which would have been considered poisonous then. Men speak of evolution now and show familiarity with authors who were anathema to the older generation.