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Yeomen, Sharecroppers, and Socialists : Plain Folk Protest in Texas, 1870–1914 / Kyle G

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Yeomen, Sharecroppers, and Socialists : Plain Folk Protest in Texas, 1870–1914 / Kyle G Yeomen, Sharecroppers, ) Socialists Number Thirty: Elma Dill Russell Spencer Series in the West and Southwest Andrés Tijerina, General Editor Series Board: Alwyn Barr James Crisp Rebecca Sharpless Eric Van Young AA4844.indb4844.indb i 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:19:08:19 AAMM AA4844.indb4844.indb iiii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:20:08:20 AAMM Yeomen, Sharecroppers, ) Socialists (PLAIN FOLK PROTEST IN TEXAS, 1870–1914) Kyle G. Wilkison Texas A&M University Press College Station AA4844.indb4844.indb iiiiii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:20:08:20 AAMM Copyright © 2008 by Kyle G. Wilkison Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved First edition This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). Binding materials have been chosen for durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilkison, Kyle Grant, 1960– Yeomen, sharecroppers, and Socialists : plain folk protest in Texas, 1870–1914 / Kyle G. Wilkison. — 1st ed. p. cm. — (Elma Dill Russell Spencer series in the West and Southwest ; no. 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-1-60344-065-3 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 1-60344-065-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Rural poor—Texas—Hunt County. 2. Rural poor—Texas—Hunt County—Social conditions—19th century. 3. Rural poor— Texas—Hunt County—Social conditions—20th century. 4. Group identity—Texas—Case studies. 5. Land tenure—Texas. 6. Farm tenancy—Economic aspects—Texas. 7. Hunt County (Tex.)— Rural conditions. 8. Religion and culture—Texas. 9. Texas— Politics and government—1865–1950. 10. Agriculture and politics—Texas. i. Title. ii. Series. hn79.t42w55 2008 307.72086′94209764272—dc22 2008011036 AA4844.indb4844.indb iivv 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:20:08:20 AAMM To Debra Greenwell Wilkison and Charles B. Wilkison Sr. (1925–99) AA4844.indb4844.indb v 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:22:08:22 AAMM AA4844.indb4844.indb vvii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:22:08:22 AAMM (CONTENTS) Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction 1 2. From Homeplace to No Place The Changing Texas Economy, 1870–1910 11 3. Farmers and Wealth Distribution in Hunt County, Texas, 1870–1910 30 4. “A Legitimate and Useful Life” Family, Work, and Community 46 5. “The Same Class of People” Cohesion and Confl ict 81 6. “The Land Shall Not Be Sold Forever” Land and God in 1910s Texas 125 7. “Whose Planet Is This Anyway?” Land and the Politics of Dissent 161 8. Conclusion 207 Appendix A. Tables for Chapter 2 215 Appendix B. Tables for Chapter 3 221 Appendix C. Methods for Chapter 3 229 Notes 235 Bibliography 271 Index 289 A4844.indb vii 8/4/08 8:08:22 AM AA4844.indb4844.indb vviiiiii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:22:08:22 AAMM (ACKNOWLEDGMENTS) Talented and dedicated reference librarians, archivists, and other mem- bers of library and archive staffs provided assistance without which I could not have written this. I owe more than I can repay for their knowl- edge, helpfulness, and kindness. These include the staffs of Abilene Christian University Library, Abilene, Texas; Archives and Oral History Collection, Gee Library, Texas A&M University–Commerce; Archives, Southern Baptist Convention Historical Society, Nashville, Tennessee; Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin; Commerce Public Library, Commerce, Texas; Dallas Public Library, Dallas, Texas; Friench Simpson Memorial Library, Hallettsville, Texas; Gladys Har- rington Library, Plano, Texas; Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee; Library Archives, Lipscomb University, Nash- ville, Tennessee; McKinney Public Library, McKinney, Texas; Sam Rayburn Library Archives then in Bonham (Tex.), now at the Center for American History, Austin; Southwest Collection, Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas; Spring Creek Library, Collin College, Plano, Texas; Texas Collection, Carroll Library, Bay- lor University, Waco, Texas; Texas Labor Archives, Special Collections, Library, the University of Texas at Arlington; Texas State Library and Archives, Austin; University Library, University of North Texas, Den- ton; United Methodist Church Historical Archives, Nashville, Tennes- see; Waco Public Library, Waco, Texas; and Walworth Harrison Library, Greenville, Texas. Others assisted in my search for oral interview subjects. For this I am indebted to Elvis Allen, David Gibson, Jimmy Hamilton, Charles Ken- nedy, Robert Lam, Robert Perritt, Elizabeth Delk Roy, Zachary Teer, Barry C. Wallace, Bentley Wallace, and Dennis Wilkinson. Most espe- cially I thank the individuals who granted interviews. Beverly Spicer and Brenda Fisseler provided valuable and timely research assistance. AA4844.indb4844.indb iixx 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:22:08:22 AAMM x Ack nowledgments I am indebted to Emily Grayson Eldridge for valuable proofreading assistance. My understanding of this era owes a specifi c debt to James R. Green. His Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895–1943 fi rst introduced me to the rural Texas protest movement of the early twentieth century and greatly infl uenced this work. Thanks to those who read and commented on different drafts of the manuscript including the anonymous readers at Texas A&M University Press, Donald Winters, Samuel T. McSeveney, Jim Lang, David L. Carl- ton, Harry E. Wade, Peter H. Buckingham, and, especially, Jimmie Lewis Franklin and George N. Green. Others shared material or the product of their own research, including G. L. Seligmann, Gene Forst, Thad Sitton, and Travis L. Summerlin. I am also grateful for the suggestions and criticisms offered by Robert C. McMath Jr., Robert A. Calvert, James V. Reese, and Rebecca Sharpless, commentators at Southern Historical Association, Texas State Histori- cal Association, and Southwestern Social Science Association sessions where I presented portions of this research. Rebecca Sharpless taught me to see the lives of southern farm women with new eyes. I benefi ted greatly from her enthusiasm for Texas plain folk history, her humane common sense, and her friendship. To James H. Conrad I owe more than I can list for his guidance and friendship. The East Texas His- torical Association supported early aspects of the research with a much- appreciated Ottis P. Locke Research Grant. A fortuitously timed Collin College Faculty Study Grant helped me regain currency in the second- ary literature. There are others—dear friends and colleagues—to whom I owe a thousand thanks for their encouragement and support. I believe they know who they are. My deepest gratitude goes to my family, for everything. AA4844.indb4844.indb x 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:23:08:23 AAMM Yeomen, Sharecroppers, ) Socialists AA4844.indb4844.indb xxii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:23:08:23 AAMM AA4844.indb4844.indb xxiiii 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:23:08:23 AAMM (CHAPTER 1) Introduction In 1912 a rumor spread through one rural Texas community that the world was on fi re; London had burned already, the fl ames had leaped the Atlantic, and the confl agration was headed straight for them. News of Halley’s Comet caused others to search the sky in fear and wonder for signs of the end of the world. Moved by the comet’s approach, a contrite blackland tenant farmer quit drinking whiskey and took up a frenetic regimen of attending every revival and camp meeting within riding dis- tance. Imaginations further leaped in 1916 at the sudden appearance of a fi ery light on the dark horizon of southwestern Hunt County. As the largest barn in the county burned, people walked and rode for miles through the night toward the unearthly glow, confessing their belief that the end of the world was upon them.1 Perhaps this anxiety was not so misplaced in the world of the rural yeoman community. Those who tried to make their livings in the semi-subsistence manner of their parents and grandparents well knew that the triumphant national marketplace was rapidly transforming their erstwhile agrarian world. What follows is an exploration of that transformation in Texas dur- ing the critical period from 1870 to 1914. This rural poor majority had inherited a common culture based in large part on neighborliness and land ownership. Neighborly interdependence provided the foundation for family survival and community independence; widespread land ownership provided the foundation for family independence that fos- AA4844.indb4844.indb 1 88/4/08/4/08 88:08:23:08:23 AAMM 2 cha pter 1 tered and allowed for neighborliness. The end of land ownership as a majority experience also ended family and community independence as the majority way of life. This work seeks to examine the responses to that economic transformation in order to frame a question rooted in a people’s culture and asks what, in fact, did the rural poor majority value, what did they choose, and what would they have chosen if they could? And how did their struggle manifest itself in the tension between a tra- ditional culture and an economic setting increasingly at odds with that culture? Between 1870 and 1910 a population explosion and the arrival of the national market via new railroads drove land prices beyond the reach of self-suffi cient but cash-poor Texas yeomen. Increasingly concentrated land ownership and the rise of the absentee-landlord forced the aban- donment of diversifi ed production for self-suffi ciency in favor of cot- ton. Turn-of-the-century landless farmers slowly discovered the per- manence of their status while all along losing wealth to the prosperous few. Yet their communities strove to retain family, work, church, and community-centered values. A minority even publicly protested the new economy, couching their critique in the language of the Protestant, evangelical rural church. Likewise, radical protest parties found dispro- portionate levels of support among these rural people.
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