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James Vardaman - One of the original White Demagogues
"So who was this Mississippi carnival barker, known for his white suits and white cowboy hat and long dark locs, who claimed to be the voice of "rednecks" and "hillbillies"? James Vardaman had been a newspaperman, who understand the power of invective. Southerners from Andrew Johnson to Wade Hampton had recurred to the barnyard insult when they damned their enemies. For Vardaman, democracy, no matter how dirty, belonged to "the people", and the people had the right to say whatever they felt. Friends and foes alike called him the "White Chief," partly for his white garb and partly for his supremacist rhetoric. But he was a "medicine man" to his enemies, a witch doctor who knew how to inflame the low-down tribe of white savages.
"He saw himself as the defender of poor whites. In his run for the governorship in 1903, Vardaman pitted poor whites against all blacks. Educating blacks was pointless and dangerous, he argued, and the state should ensure that tax dollars from white citizens should only go to white schools. The consummate showman rode to Senate victory in 1912 - quite literally - on the back of an ox. When his Democratic primary opponent derided his supporters as an ignorant herd, he exploited the incident. Travelling through Mississippi giving speeches, he liked to pull up in a "cracker cart" amid a long line of cattle. At one rally he rode into town astride a single ox. The beast was adorned with flags and streamers labeled "redneck," "cattle," and "lowdown." He dramatically embraced the white trash identity."
Insofar as the surviving planter elite and middle-class Mississippians despised Vardaman, he intentionally drummed up class resentments. In his reminiscence, William Percy, the son of Vardaman's Democratic opponent, Le Roy Percy, best expressed the class anger. Recalling how he surveyed the surly crowd, wondering if Vardaman's army would launch rotten eggs at his father, Percy wrote:
"They were the sort of people that lynch Negroes, that mistake hoodlumism for wit, and cunning for intelligence, that attend revivals and fight and fornicate in the bushes afterwards. They were undiluted Ango-Saxons. They were the sovereign voter. It was so horrible it seemed unreal."
Though he had no patience for the politics of hate run as a sideshow, Percy conceded that Vardaman was a savvy politician who gave the "sovereign voter" what he wanted - red meat.
Roosevelt, a patrician, had little choice but to joust with his redneck foes. In 1905, during his southern tour, he rebuked Arkansas governor Jeff Davis for defending the lynch mob. One newspaper joked that the president's entourage was wise to travel though Mississippi at night, so that Vardaman wouldn't have to shoot him. Roosevelt also ruffled the feathers of the proud white women of the South when he had dared to class Jefferon Davis ( the Confederate President) with Benedict Arnold. When he did that, one incensed Georgia woman declared that the president had dishonoored his mother's blood."
"He saw himself as the defender of poor whites. In his run for the governorship in 1903, Vardaman pitted poor whites against all blacks. Educating blacks was pointless and dangerous, he argued, and the state should ensure that tax dollars from white citizens should only go to white schools. The consummate showman rode to Senate victory in 1912 - quite literally - on the back of an ox. When his Democratic primary opponent derided his supporters as an ignorant herd, he exploited the incident. Travelling through Mississippi giving speeches, he liked to pull up in a "cracker cart" amid a long line of cattle. At one rally he rode into town astride a single ox. The beast was adorned with flags and streamers labeled "redneck," "cattle," and "lowdown." He dramatically embraced the white trash identity."
Insofar as the surviving planter elite and middle-class Mississippians despised Vardaman, he intentionally drummed up class resentments. In his reminiscence, William Percy, the son of Vardaman's Democratic opponent, Le Roy Percy, best expressed the class anger. Recalling how he surveyed the surly crowd, wondering if Vardaman's army would launch rotten eggs at his father, Percy wrote:
"They were the sort of people that lynch Negroes, that mistake hoodlumism for wit, and cunning for intelligence, that attend revivals and fight and fornicate in the bushes afterwards. They were undiluted Ango-Saxons. They were the sovereign voter. It was so horrible it seemed unreal."
Though he had no patience for the politics of hate run as a sideshow, Percy conceded that Vardaman was a savvy politician who gave the "sovereign voter" what he wanted - red meat.
Roosevelt, a patrician, had little choice but to joust with his redneck foes. In 1905, during his southern tour, he rebuked Arkansas governor Jeff Davis for defending the lynch mob. One newspaper joked that the president's entourage was wise to travel though Mississippi at night, so that Vardaman wouldn't have to shoot him. Roosevelt also ruffled the feathers of the proud white women of the South when he had dared to class Jefferon Davis ( the Confederate President) with Benedict Arnold. When he did that, one incensed Georgia woman declared that the president had dishonoored his mother's blood."
From White Trash, by Nancy Isenberg
I don't need to point out modern day parallels.
