Historic Charlotte

eporter in January 1898, “becomes in the
hands of the ignorant and the vicious classes a
most destructive and dangerous element.” The
Charlotte Observer claimed that the Populists
and their Republican allies had established a
regime in Raleigh “as corrupt as the crypt of
Hades” and predicted that on Election Day,
November 8, 1898, the people would “bury its
corrupters beneath an avalanche of ballots.”
The Democrats understood that the support
of factory workers would be crucial in
the upcoming election. Consequently, they
established the Workingmen’s Democratic
Club and dispatched speakers to preach the
mantra of white racial unity. John D. Bellamy,
a Democrat candidate for Congress, spoke to
the laborers at Highland Park Manufacturing
Plant No. 1 on September 27th. He told the
mill hands that the election would determine
whether the affairs of North Carolina would
“be controlled by the vicious, or whether they
shall be put in the hands of the intelligent
people of the State—the white people.”
The Populists and the Republicans
attempted to stem the tidal wave of white
racial antipathy that was running against
African Americans. On March 31, 1898, a lecturer
at Biddle Institute told his audience that
politicians “should guard and protect” the
interests of black citizens. Oliver H. Dockery,
a Republican candidate for Congress, speaking
at a political meeting at the old courthouse
on West Trade Street, was even more
direct in his denunciation of what he believed
the Democrats were attempting to accomplish.
According to a newspaper reporter who
covered the event, Dockery insisted that his
opponents “tried to narrow the issues down to
one—the miserable cry of n…..! n…..!”
The Democrats assured all who would listen
that they really had African Americans’
best interests at heart. Indeed, to their way of
thinking, all citizens, including blacks, would
benefit from orderly government. What historian
Paul Escott derisively calls the privileged
“better half” claimed that it alone was fit to
rule. “Be it our work, the work of all of us, to
hasten the day when the dream of Southern
supremacy through Southern prosperity shall
be realized in all its fullness,” declared the
Charlotte Observer on March 6, 1898.
The Charlotte Observer appealed directly to
the racial prejudices of white voters as Election
Day neared. On October 22, 1898, the newspaper
claimed that “the eyes of the nation” were
upon North Carolina. “ . . . unless the State rights
itself at the coming election we are likely to fall
under that contempt which is always visited
upon cravens,” the editors proclaimed. Calling
Governor Russell “vicious and vindictive beyond
any man in the State,” the newspaper insisted
that the governor had “appointed rascals to
office, knowing them to be rascals.” “No one has
written or told what momentous consequences
are involved in the result of the balloting of
Tuesday,” the editor wrote, “because no one can.”
The Democrat Party emerged victorious
from the balloting on November 8th.
Predictably, the Charlotte Observer was overjoyed
by the outcome. “The white people got
together and won the election,” the newspaper
declared. The shift in votes by precinct was
actually relatively small, but Democrat totals
did rise in every box in Charlotte Township,
including the two mill boxes and the three
rural boxes. Just enough whites had abandoned
the Populists and the Republicans to
produce a Democrat victory. Statewide, the
balloting put 134 Democrats in the General
Assembly and only 36 Fusionists. “Being in
power again,” said the Charlotte Observer
about the Democrats, “the real people of North
✧
Dr. J.T. Williams was the U.S Ambassador
to Sierra Leone from 1898-1907. One of the
leaders of the black community, Williams
owned a house on Brevard Street, a farm
south of town, and invested in businesses
despite a hostile political climate.
COURTESY OF CAROLINA ROOM, PUBLIC LIBRARY
OF CHARLOTTE AND MECKLENBURG COUNTY.
CHAPTER VIII
59