850 in some places where the Negro population was cons

[Malcom S. <ra...@ju...>]

As there were cases of Negroes migrating from parts where no such
conditions obtained. Yet some of the whites giving their version of the
situation admitted that violent methods had been used so to intimidate
the Negroes as to compel them to vote according to the dictation of the
whites. It was also learned that the _bulldozers_ concerned in
dethroning the non-taxpaying blacks were an impecunious and
irresponsible group themselves, led by men of the wealthy class.[1]
Coming to the defense of the whites, some said that much of the
persecution with which the blacks were afflicted was due to the fear of
Negro uprisings, the terror of the days of slavery. The whites, however,
did practically nothing to remove the underlying causes. They did not
encourage education and made no efforts to cure the Negroes of faults
for which slavery itself was to be blamed and consequently could not get
the confidence of the blacks. The races tended rather to drift apart.
The Negroes lived in fear of reenslavement while the whites believed
that the war between the North and South would soon be renewed. Some
Negroes thinking likewise sought to go to the North to be among friends.
The blacks, of course, had come so to regard southern whites as their
enemies as to render impossible a voluntary division in politics. Among
the worst of all faults of the whites was their unwillingness to labor
and their tendency to do mischief.[2] As there were so many to live on
the labor of the Negroes they were reduced to a state a little better
than that of bondage. The master class was generally unfair to the
blacks. No longer responsible for them as slaves, the planters
endeavored after the war to get their labor for nothing. The Negroes
themselves had no