Entangled by White Supremacy: Reform in World War I-era South Carolina

Chapter 2. White Resolve

“It is possible, indeed likely,” declared The State’s editor, William Watts Ball, “that the South Carolina and the South that we have known will be, on account of this war, unrecognizable in the course of a few years.” Ball’s optimistic forecast demonstrates aptly that World War I inspired hope. Not only were South Carolina’s African American reformers hopeful, but the war also fostered high expectations among whites who styled themselves progressive reformers. They dreamed of a progressive South Carolina with a diverse and prosperous economy, an effective state highway system, expanded educational opportunity, compassionate treatment of the mentally ill, rehabilitation for wayward juveniles and adult prisoners, and an improved standard of living. Moreover, Ball continued, “To the old timers , accustomed to the jog trot of Southern manners and living, the changes will bring disturbance, annoyance and perhaps inconvenience under which they will chafe and fret: some of these one may decry in the close future, but by and large, the changes will be salutary.”1 Here Ball alludes to white reformers’ perception of themselves as leaders who embraced change eagerly, anticipating positive outcomes. South Carolina white reformers, drawn from the state’s relatively small middle class, included lawyers, journalists, university professors, public school educators and administrators, ministers, businessmen, doctors, civic leaders, agricultural scientists, agricultural extension agents, and others. These middle-class professionals pursued widely varying goals, emphasized different priorities, and often pushed conflicting agendas. Yet this small, active cohort of reformers shared a broadly articulated vision in the World War I era of a better-educated and economically prosperous state, with a White Resolve 41 Chapter 2 Entangled by White Supremacy 42 higher standard of living, adequate health care, less crime and violence , better roads, and a more diverse economy. Fundamentally, they desired to move South Carolina from the bottom tier of so many lists that served as indicators of economic well-being and a satisfactory standard of living. Like their national counterparts, South Carolina reformers were imbued with notions linking efficiency and progress, believing that the appropriate expertise could remedy any of society’s economic, political, and social ills. They wanted to bring order and effectiveness to state government and business.2 Progressives deemed an educated population essential to all other reform endeavors. They especially recognized the importance of extending educational opportunities to broader segments of the population. As educated leaders they enjoyed a privilege not available to the overwhelming majority of South Carolinians. During their adolescence the state provided only seven years of public education. South Carolina created its first public high schools after 1907, and those were not widely available across the state. Consequently all formal education beyond the seventh grade required private funds. Thus the mark of every reformer was a credentialed education, acquired from both private and public colleges and universities, in and outside the state. From grade school to college, educational improvement received attention from reformers because of South Carolina’s manifest deficiencies at all levels.3 White reformers advocated improving the economy through commercial and industrial development. Moreover, they focused on strengthening the economy by helping South Carolina diversify its agriculture, become much less dependent on cotton, and implement more-scientific agricultural methods. Most reformers advocated construction of a state network of highways, believing that improved transportation facilitated all other economic development strategies. Some white reformers directed their energy and attention to reforming the institutions of state government, which seemed wholly inadequate for administering the programs that reformers thought the state needed.4 Since additional state revenue was so fundamental to any reform, revising South Carolina’s tax structure loomed large on many reformers ’ agendas in the postwar era. They wanted a new tax system that would generate adequate revenue to fund their long list of public White Resolve 43 needs. In addition to filling the state treasury with ample funds, they expected a reformed tax system to distribute the public financial burden fairly among landowners and to tax all income-generating sources, not simply property owners. In the pursuit of improved humanitarian institutions, some reformers highlighted as serious social ills South Carolina’s horrendous prison conditions, its inadequate reformatories for errant youth, its labor-exploitative chain gangs, and the employment of children in the textile industry. Others crusaded for improvement in public health, better mental health facilities, county almshouses for the elderly indigent, and restrictions on child labor in industry. Like their counterparts...