race

NOW WE DESCRIBE HOW THE BLACK MAN DIED

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Just before Memorial Day in 1911, one-fifth of Santa Rosa’s entire African-American community died on Fourth street. His name was John Williams.

At only 31 years old, Mr. Williams was too young to die of a heart attack. He worked as a bootblack at the downtown Overton Hotel barber shop but apparently when the chest pains began that spring evening, he was at home in the small rooming house above Frank Muther’s cigar store at 513 Fourth (about the current location of Tex Wasabi’s). He went downstairs and used the store’s phone to summon a doctor, which is what anyone did in those days if there was an emergency. He collapsed after making the call and died in the storeroom of the tobacco shop, attended by two physicians. The Press Democrat reported his last words were, “Goodbye boys, I’m dying. Goodbye.”

He lived alone but was married; his wife, Lucy, worked as “a domestic in the country,” according to the PD. In the census taken almost exactly a year earlier we found him in another rooming house and again alone. The census takers recorded only four other blacks living within city limits, a group so small that we can name them here and maybe help some descendant fill out a family tree. There was Ruben Safford (a barber) and Aleck Houston (a cook), hotel chambermaid Bertha Christopher and Lu Ann Edwards, a 63 year-old housekeeper.

That year African-Americans were the smallest racial minority in Santa Rosa (there were 37 Japanese and 70 Chinese in the census). Never before or since has Santa Rosa had so few black residents – there were even four times more blacks ‘way back in 1860, when the town was little more than a dusty crossroads with a county courthouse. Among those living here in those pre-Civil War years was John Richards, a former slave who became a successful businessman here and owned the property that became the South Park neighborhood, near the intersection of highways 101 and 12. (Gaye LeBaron has written several times about Richards and other black Santa Rosans in the 19th century; one such column can be read online via the SSU archives.)

In 1910, however, there was probably no great surprise that the census-takers found only five blacks in town – Santa Rosa was then about the whitest community in the whitest county in the whitest state. Look at the numbers: John Williams and the others represented just .06 percent of the town’s population. There were only 43 “negroes” in all of Sonoma County, less than even neighboring Marin and Napa (0.1, 0.6 and 0.2 percent, respectively). Overall, fewer than one person in a hundred in California was African-American.

(RIGHT: One of several advertising cartoons that appeared in the 1908 Santa Rosa Republican that featured a servile African-American youth. The drawing was from a series created by Richard F. Outcault, the cartoonist behind The Yellow Kid)

As the shoe-shiner in Santa Rosa’s best hotel, Williams was “a well known colored man about town,” according that Press Democrat item about the last few minutes of his life, which is really all we know for sure about his years here. We know he was light-skinned because he can be found as a baby in the 1880 census for Paris, Texas listed as “Mulatto”. The instructions to census enumerators that year specified, “Be particularly careful in reporting the class mulatto. The word is here generic, and includes quadroons, octoroons, and all persons having any perceptible trace of African blood. Important scientific results depend upon the correct determination of this class…” The notion that there were “important scientific results” riding on accurate labels was racist nonsense, as shown by John Williams’ family. His father John was listed as black and his mother, Gracy, as mulatto. Of John junior’s four brothers and sisters, three were designated as black plus one sister as mulatto. Scientists, sharpen your pencils and prepare to write really important monographs about what that could possibly mean.

And although we may think of the “mulatto” designation as a lingering throwback to Civil War-era mentality, it was still deemed somehow important in 1910 to fine tune African-Americans by their skin tone (1920 was the last year it was required). The census instructions for that year ordered, “the term ‘black’ (B) includes all persons who are evidently full-blooded negroes, while the term ‘Mulatto’ (Mu) included all other persons having some proportion or perceptible trace of negro blood.” The Santa Rosa census further shows the absurdity of requiring census takers to draw conclusions about race; John Williams was now designated black and the town had one mulatto – who was actually from the Philippines.

For the government to care whether Mr. Williams was a “full-blooded negro” or a “mulatto” reveals one of the many threads of racism woven into American culture in those days. There was (probably) little overt discrimination in 1910 Santa Rosa – we know anecdotally that black men were welcome at downtown saloons, which were the primary social centers for males in that era. He didn’t seem to face housing discrimination; the other three boarders in the 1910 rooming house were whites. He apparently was receiving good medical care as he was dying and when he died, John Williams was not buried in the Potter’s Field graveyard as was required for anyone Chinese; he is one of at least ten African-Americans in Santa Rosa’s Rural Cemetery. (The location of his grave is unknown, but that’s a common problem in the Fulkerson section.) It would be wrong to presume this was a bastion of racial harmony, however – a few years earlier, another black man was beaten for the offense of simply tipping his hat to a white woman.

While Santa Rosa wasn’t really a Jim Crow town, it was nevertheless deeply part of a culture that dished up routine unkindness. Nearly everything that appeared in the local papers about African-Americans sent the message they ranked beneath whites and would never catch up. The Press Democrat was usually worse about this than the Santa Rosa Republican, but both often published offensive ads such as the one shown above. Neither Santa Rosa newspaper spewed racist epithets against blacks – as they sometimes still called Asians “Chinks” or “Japs” – yet the editors thought it great fun when whites smeared their faces with burnt cork and performed “Coon” songs.

(RIGHT: saloonkeeper Jack Mathews in makeup for the Elks’ minstrel show and unknown men in drawing captioned, “Dewey and Bowen as the Bridegroom and Bride in the Elks’ Minstrels”)

Amateur minstrel shows became quite a fad around 1910; every few months some club or society, both male and female, would put on a show somewhere in Santa Rosa. The January, 1912 performance by members of the Elks Club was the biggest one yet, with several advance articles in both papers promising the audience a really swell time, illustrated with original caricatures of prominent men in costume and makeup. As discussed earlier, minstrel shows of this type were a far cry from the real thing, which had been seen here just a few years before. The turn-of-the-century minstrel show was an all (or mostly) black ensemble of top performers such as “Father of the Blues” W.C. Handy and Billy Kersands, who basically invented tap dancing. They performed before biracial audiences and included cultural references specifically for blacks that whites wouldn’t get. There were few of those companies still around by 1910 – now attending a minstrel show meant watching members of the Chamber of Commerce shuffle about the stage telling watermelon jokes, acting foolish and laughing at the disenfranchised. It was mean-spirited and condescending, bordering on cruel. Strike that: It was cruel.

The difference between the two Santa Rosa papers was only apparent when it came to national news content. The Republican stayed true to its party-of-Lincoln roots by keeping Southern lynchings and other racial violence at the forefront. Over at the Press Democrat, shameful examples of prejudice abound. Some examples:

* During the 1904 presidential election, PD editor Ernest Finley expressed alarm that Teddy Roosevelt was inclined to promote racial equality, even having a black child stand onstage next to a white child during the convention. The following year the PD had even more of a fit when Teddy appointed an African-American to the position of collector of the Port of New York, because “Not one man in a thousand having business with the collector of the New York port is a negro.”

* When black workers from Los Angeles were brought here to break a strike in 1906, the race of the men was the predominant issue for the PD, not that the local contractor bringing in scab labor.

* A PD editorial warned about African-American “uppishness” if Jack Johnson were to beat a white boxer in a 1910 match for heavyweight champ.

But maybe the ugliest example of racism was also the softest, and goes back to the PD item on John Williams’ death:

…Suddenly he raised his arms and cried out: “God have mercy.” He staggered back… [realizing] that the end was coming. He raised himself and said: “Goodbye boys, I’m dying. Goodbye.”

That’s the kind of breathless, melodramatic prose that could have been found in a pulp magazine story, or maybe an old-time novel such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It shows no respect for his loved ones to repeat details about his begging to God and staggering about, clearly in mortal pain. In the eight years I have been reading Santa Rosa newspapers from this era, I don’t recall a single instance where a banker or businessman or other prominent had his or her final moments described with pathos or even finely detailed at all, except for gentle euphemisms about “entering into peace” or such. But it’s likely editor Finley and the reporter didn’t think for a moment that they were demeaning John Williams by not extending to a “colored man” the same courtesies. After all, their unkindness grew out of long habit.

GOODBYE BOYS, I’M DYING–DIED
John Williams, Colored Man, Dies Suddenly in Storeroom on Fourth Street Last Night

John Williams, a well known colored man about town, who was for sometime employed as bootblack in the Overton barber shop and in other locations here, died very suddenly last night.

Williams walked into Frank Muther’s cigar store shortly after nine o’clock and asked Mr. Muther if he might use the phone to call Dr. Jackson Temple, as he was feeling ill. Permission was readily given, and Dr. Temple, who had retired, said he would come as quickly as possible. Lying down the phone, the man again complained of his illness and walked out into the store. Suddenly he raised his arms and cried out:

“God have mercy.”

He staggered back. Mr. Muther rushed to his assistance and helped him into the inner room and laid him down. Then he and William Brown, the latter the man’s old employer, did what they could for him, and medical assistance was summoned. Dr. S. M. Rohr was on Fourth street at the time and he came at once to the store. Mr. Temple also arrived quickly, and the physicians did what they could for the dying man. The latter realized that the end was coming. He raised himself and said:

“Goodbye boys, I’m dying. Goodbye.”

He laid back and expired. He has a wife who is employed as a domestic in the country.

– Press Democrat, May 27, 1911

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A TALE OF TWO MURDERERS

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Murder was almost unheard of in early 20th century Santa Rosa and West County, but in the late summer of 1910 there were two that happened within weeks. And because both killers were Japanese men, the coverage of the deeds in the Santa Rosa newspapers give us a snapshot of media attitudes on race.

Events began with the July murder of Enoch Kendall, his wife and adult son at the Lion’s Head Ranch near Cazadero. Their bodies had been dismembered and parts burned in the cookstove, with their remains of charred bones and ashes piled in the yard. The body of Mrs. Kendall, sans head and both legs, was found in the woods. The Press Democrat’s headline proclaimed it the “Most Atrocious Crime in History of Sonoma County.”

(RIGHT: Kendalls and Yamaguchi, illustration from the Oakland Tribune, August 5, 1910

Suspicion immediately fell on Henry Yamaguchi, a young Japanese laborer who knew the owner of the ranch. The Kendalls were leasing the property from Mrs. Margaret Starbuck of Oakland, who had been trying to evict them for some time; she had filed four lawsuits against the family in Sonoma County, accusing them of stealing and selling some of her cattle. Yamaguchi, who had previously performed a few odd jobs for Mrs. Starbuck at the ranch and at her Oakland home, now worked at the Cazadero Hotel and volunteered to keep an eye on the Kendalls for her.

When the bodies were found the police contacted Mrs. Starbuck. She told them that Yamaguchi had appeared at her Oakland residence unexpectedly around the day of the murders. He appeared to have been beaten up and  told her that the younger Kendall had shot at him. He had fought “all three of them,” according to Mrs. Starbuck, and he told her, “I do ’em all up; I put ’em away. They no bother you no more.” She was alarmed by his remarks, but as the murders had not yet been discovered, Yamaguchi was allowed to leave.

But once the crime was revealed, Yamaguchi could not be found. The local Japanese association immediately called a meeting in Santa Rosa and vowed to help search for him statewide, even raising money for a reward.

At the inquest Mrs. Starbuck told a more incriminating story, with Yamaguchi yelling, “I shot him! I shot him! I shot him!” before saying, “I kill myself; I must kill myself.” The coroner’s jury charged Yamaguchi with murder.

Exactly a month after Yamaguchi’s indictment, the second killing happened in Sebastopol. During the performance of a Japanese play by a touring company in Lincoln Hall (McKinley Street, near the movie theater) Y. Yasuda shot another a man twice from the back. He was immediately arrested, as was another Japanese man who took money from the dead man’s pockets. Yasuda says he acted in self defense and was held over for trial.

Meanwhile, the Sonoma County Grand Jury was investigating the Kendall murder case. Testimony was raising questions about the truthfulness of Mrs. Starbuck. At the earlier inquest she had already contradicted her original story that Yamaguchi appeared to have been beaten; she told the coroner he did not appear to have any injuries aside from a possible bruise on a cheek. It also came out at the inquest that she was the only person who heard Yamaguchi’s confession. Mr. Starbuck testified he came home later and found his wife quite agitated and Yamaguichi sobbing that he would kill himself. The husband said he considered the story “too preposterous” to believe and “if Yamaguichi had fought all three of the Kendalls he could not have hurt them much.” As Yamaguichi was just five feet three and weighed 120 pounds, the crime would have been quite the job for him, what with all the butchery required.

Witnesses told the Grand Jury she remained determine to evict the Kendalls despite losing the four lawsuits against them. She instructed a man named Cox to find her a new tenant. Cox asked how she would get the Kendalls to leave, she allegedly told him, “there are more ways than one to get them off.” She also tried to sell the ranch, which she had denied in earlier testimony:


W. B. Quigley flatly contradicted Mrs. Starbuck regarding the proposed sale or transfer of the ranch to Japanese for colonization or other purposes. He testified that he had about completed negotiations for the sale of the ranch when a hitch occurred and the deal was declared off. Mrs. Starbuck later denied any such deal as that first above mentioned, had ever been contemplated.

While none of this incriminated Mrs. Starbuck in an actual crime, it certainly called into question her other testimony. At the end of the story the Press Democrat commented, “It is declared by those who know that there was sufficient shifting of both the testimony of Mrs. Starbuck and her husband to have considerable effect if the case ever comes to trial. There are those who believe she is still keeping secret more than she is telling in the case.”

Yamaguchi was indicted by the Grand Jury, despite the only thread of evidence against him being an alleged confession to a woman who apparently had a deep and irrational hatred for the Kendalls. Let me repeat that: A man was indicted for murder only on the word of a person who wanted the victims out of her hair. Such an outrageous abuse of justice makes it impossible to imagine racism was not a major factor in the Grand Jury’s indictment.

But the topic here is media racism: Did the 1910 and 1911 newspapers report this story – and the one about the Sebastopol murder – with prejudice? The answer is mixed.

Cheer that the racial slur “little brown men” didn’t once appear in either paper, although both used it the year before in almost every story about local Japanese. In 1910, “Jap” and “Nipponese” were as nasty as the name-calling got. Not that there wasn’t racist news reported that year; there was also a lecture on Japanese exclusion in Santa Rosa, ending with a resolution calling for boycotts against Japanese labor and businesses as well as anyone else who engaged with anyone Japanese.

The downside was that the papers made the two Japanese men into cardboard villains. Readers learned nothing about Yamaguchi, although the police description mentioned he was a member of a Methodist Church in Oakland and “was well known in Fruitvale.” The Press Democrat ran at least a dozen stories on the Kendall murders, several with front page headlines; couldn’t they have spared a reporter for an afternoon to interview people who knew him best? For the Yasuda shooting, we never learned about a motive, aside from hints such as, “the trouble that led to the shooting grew out of some gambling deals.”

There was no interest in reporting on the trial proceedings of a Japanese-upon-Japanese crime, so coverage of the Sebastopol killing instead relentlessly focused on any white people involved in the story, particularly Frank Harrington, the ticket taker at Lincoln Hall and only non-Japanese person in attendance.  Harrington disarmed Yasuda after the incident; according to the Santa Rosa Republican, it was an act of heroism straight from a dime novel:


Mr. Harrison the doorkeeper of the theater, showed remarkable coolness and presence of mind in the turbulent scenes which followed. As the Jap with the smoking pistol came toward him at the door he struck the man in the face, grasped the pistol from him and held him there until he was taken into custody. Had the Japanese escaped from the theater and mingled in the crowd, it would have given the officers difficulty to apprehend him.

Note the soft racism that officers would not be able to identify Yasuda if he was in a crowd of other Japanese. (Note also that the Republican was too busy turning the incident into a ripping yarn to spell the Harrington’s name correctly.) When the trial was held coverage in both papers was perfunctory, the main point of interest being that the Japanese translator was a white man. “The way he handled the questions and answers was a revelation to those in the courts who had rarely heard a Caucasian speak the language.”

Both stories had unsatisfying endings.

Yasuda was found not guilty by the jury, which must have come as a shock to Santa Rosans, as there had been no mention of evidence showing he could have acted in self defense.

Yamaguchi’s picture appeared prominently in newspapers in Santa Rosa and San Francisco and elsewhere, and a $1,000 reward was offered – half from the Governor and half from William Randolph Hearst’s Examiner. Despite false sightings in Oakland, Vacaville and a train bound for Mexico, he was never found.

Mrs. Starbuck and her husband divorced not long after the Kendall murders. History has come to judge her harshly; mentions of the incident found on the Internet today claim she was “implicated” in the crime, and sometimes it’s claimed that she sent Yamaguchi to the Kendalls with orders to “give ’em hell.” Neither were true.

Probably.

WOULD EXCLUDE THE JAPANESE

At the meeting held in Trembley hall on Sunday night at which an address was delivered on Japanese exclusion, the following resolutions were adopted:

“Whereas, The petitions of the people of California and other Pacific Coast states demanding relief from Japanese and other Asiatic immigration are unheeded and ignored by Congress, and

“Whereas, the situation is growing more grave and inimical to the welfare of the white race, be it

Resolved, That a boycott be instituted against Japanese and other Asiatics.

1. A boycott against all articles grown or manufactured by Japanese

2. A boycott against all Japanese engaged in business of any kind

3. A boycott against all white persons engaged in business, manufacture or agriculture who employ or patronize Japanese

4. A political boycott irrespective of party against all candidates  who employ or patronize Japanese, or who hold stock in any corporation employing Japanese, or who are not avowedly and openly opposed to further Japanese immigration.

“It is further resolved to enforce and encourage said boycott by every legitimate and legal means to the end that coolie or servile labor may no longer menace the free institutions of this republic.

– Press Democrat, February 8, 1910
MURDER DONE AS PLAY PROCEEDS
Japanese Slain by Fellow Countryman in Lincoln Hall at Sebastopol Sunday Night

From comedy to tragedy the scene was quickly changed in Lincoln hall at Sebastopol on Sunday night. Mimicry suddenly gave way to realism and real murder was done before the eyes of 250 persons, who, at the time were in the hall witnessing a production by a Japanese theatrical company, the play was one of the features of entertainment the Japanese had arranged. The actors were before the footlights and the Nipponese were applauding their offerings of mirth when all of a sudden and without warning, a pistol shot rang out, followed in quick succession by others. Instantly there was wild confusion, and a babel  of tongues. Chairs were upset and men and women scrambled to nearby cover. As described by Frank Harrington, who chanced to be the only spectator at the play and the subsequent slaying, it was certainly a time of terror for the Japanese. When the smoke cleared away Hisayama lay dead upon the floor, shot through the heart and chest. His assailant, Yasuda, still held the smoking weapon threateningly.

Harrington’s Nerve

Harrington took in the situation in an instant. He rushed to the side of the slayer and grabbed the hand that held the gun. A struggle ensued but Harrington wrenched the revolver from Yasuda and turned the weapon upon him, subduing any further onslaught upon anyone, and then kept the crowd at bay while he placed the murderer under arrest.

City Marshall Fisher Arrives

Yasuda was jailed by City Marshal Fisher and a message telling of the killing was sent to District Attorney Clarence Lea. That official jumped from his bed, rang up Court Reporter Harry Scott, and in a very short time they were starting for Sebastopol in an automobile, stopping to pick up Deputy Sheriff Donald McIntosh. At Sebastopol the District Attorney took a number of statements and Deputy Sheriff McIntosh took another Jap into custody on suspicion that he might have taken some coin from Hisayama’s pocket after the latter had been killed. The officials returned to this city at an early hour on Monday morning. District Attorney Lea, Sheriff Smith and Court Reporter Scott returned again to Sebastopol later in the morning and secured additional details. Coroner Blackburn was also notified.

Said to Be Gambler

The dead Japanese is said to have been a gambler and that the trouble that led to the shooting grew out of some gambling deals. Yasuda says he acted in self defense.

Coroner Blackburn will hold an inquest at Sebastopol this evening at seven o’clock.

– Press Democrat, September 27, 1910

JAP MURDERED AT SEBASTOPOL
Gambling Quarrel Between Japs Result in Death

Hisayame, A Santa Rosa Japanese, was murdered in the Japanese theater at Sebastopol Sunday evening by Y. Yasede, a Japanese from Asti. The murder was committed about 11 o’clock and was the result of an old gambling quarrel the two had had. The murderer was caught immediately after taking the life of his countryman. Frank Harrington, the ticket taker at the Japanese theater, apprehending him. Yasede was held in the city jail at Sebastopol over Sunday night.

Coroner Frank L. Blackburn came over from Monte Rio Monday morning…

…The murdered man was shot twice from the rear, and either of the wounds wound have been sufficient to have produced death. One of the bullets entered the man’s back near the spinal column and came out near the nipple of the left breast, evidently having passed through the heart. The other shot entered back of the right ear and came out at the right side of the man’s nose. He dropped in his tracks and expired instantly.

Mr. Harrison the doorkeeper of the theater, showed remarkable coolness and presence of mind in the turbulent scenes which followed. As the Jap with the smoking pistol came toward him at the door he struck the man in the face, grasped the pistol from him and held him there until he was taken into custody. Had the Japanese escaped from the theater and mingled in the crowd, it would have given the officers difficulty to apprehend him.

Coroner Frank L. Blackburn was over at Sebastopol Monday and looking over the matter…

 – Santa Rosa Republican, September 27, 1910
JAPANESE IS HELD FOR THE MURDER OF COUNTRYMAN

The Coroner’s jury at Sebastopol last night formally charged Y. Yasuda with the murder of Y. Hisayama in Lincoln hall in that town last Sunday night during the performance of a Japanese play. He is in jail here to await the holding of the preliminary examination.

Several witnesses were called at the inquest held by Coroner Frank L. Blackburn…The testimony was sufficient to warrant the formal charge of murder in the minds of the jurymen, and they did not hesitate in returning a verdict.

Medical evidence given showed that Hisayama’s death must have been instantaneous. One bullet severed the jugular vein and the other passed through the heart. The location of the shots indicated the deadly and murderous aim of the accused.

One of the principal witnesses was Frank Harrington, the only white man present at the Japanese play at which the murder was committed and whose evidence is very material. Mr. Harrington grabbed the pistol from Yasuda’s hands after the shooting to prevent further trouble.

Another Japanese has been arrested. He was arrested for having removed coin from the dead Japanese’s pockets. He was a close friend of the murdered man, and half of the money he took belonged to him, so he says.

– Press Democrat, September 28, 1910

TESTIMONY IN JAPANESE MURDER TRIAL BEGUN

At the trial of Y. Yasuda before Judge Emmet Seawell on Wednesday afternoon, F. W. Harrington and J. F. Ames were the witnesses examined. Yasuda is charged with the murder of O. Hisayama in Sebastopol.

Harrington is the man who wrested the revolver from Yasuda after he had killed Hisayama, and as he was trying to escape from Lincoln hall, where the murder was committed during the presentation of a Japanese drama. Harrington told the jury of the events prior to and at the time of the killing so far as they lay in his knowledge. Mr. Ames’ testimony was along similar lines.

At the morning session Thursday Ed F. O’Leary testified to the bullet holes in the clothing of the deceased, and the clothes were introduced in evidence and inspected by the jury.

Dr. J. E. Maddux gave the jury information relative to the course pursued by the bullet that had entered the body of Hisayama.

Fred R. Mathews told the court and jury of the arrest of the defendant, and of his detention awaiting trial.

G. Oka and F. Morseiya, Japanese, were witnesses also. They gave their testimony through an official interpreter.

At the afternoon session of the murder trial, the proceedings were quite brief. Y. Maruyama testified for the defendant, and another witness was recalled for further examination.

Attorney George W. Hoyle made the opening address for the prosecution and was followed by Attorney Thomas J. Butts. The closing argument was made by Attorney Hoyle.

Charles H. Gaffney, official interpreter of the Japanese language in the San Francisco courts, was the interpreter at the trial. The way he handled the questions and answers was a revelation to those in the courts who had rarely heard a Caucasian speak the language.

 – Santa Rosa Republican, March 23, 1911

JURY ACQUITS A JAPANESE QUICKLY
Y. Yasuda, Charged With Murder of O. Hisayama in Sebastopol, is Found Not Guilty

Y. Yasuda, the Japanese charged with the murder of O. Hisayama, in Lincoln Hall, Sebastopol, last fall, during the Oriental theatrical performance, was acquitted Thursday evening by a jury after less than half an Hour’s deliberation.

The taking of testimony was completed shortly after the opening of the afternoon session. Assistant District Attorney G. W. Hoyle, who conducted the prosecution argued the case, reviewing the points of the trial as they had been brought out in the testimony and asked for a conviction.

Attorney T. J. Butts, who represented the defendant, made a strong plea for an acquittal, on the ground of self-defense, after which Hoyle closed the case and it was submitted to the jury. On the first ballot the jury stood 11 to 1 for acquittal, and after a few minutes argument and explanation, the one went over and the next ballot was unanimous for acquittal.

The verdict came as a complete surprise to some, while others who had watched the case expected no other action. Yasuda left the courtroom with his countrymen after he had shook hands and thanked each of the jurors.

– Press Democrat, March 24, 1911

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WHO HATED THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS?

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

Lots of people, as it turns out, including Santa Rosa attorney James Wyatt Oates: He didn’t like what Lincoln said. Others had more knee-jerk reactions.

Oates, as followers of this journal well know, was the man who built (what would become known as) Comstock House in Santa Rosa. He originally came from Alabama but he personally played no role in the Civil War – he was only eleven when it began. Mr. Oates had views on the war that were out of step with what we might presume a Southerner of his generation would have. He did not mourn the Confederacy’s defeat and thought Lincoln was a great man who did the right thing in fighting to preserve the Union; he hated slavery, and deplored the way the South tried to justify it. We know his strong views on the subjects because he was also a writer of sorts, and twenty essays and short stories have survived. His 1905 essay, “Lincoln,” is partially transcribed below, but all of them can be read in facsimile at the web page for his collected works.

         

LINCOLN’S DOLOROUS AUDIENCE

Between the Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s famous address four months passed, with the situation steadily growing worse in both the North and South. No one still had any illusions that the war would soon end or enjoyed complete faith that their side would ultimately triumph. It was these dispirited and discontented people whom Lincoln’s words needed to touch.

In the North, less than two weeks after Gettysburg and just as the public was beginning to grasp the enormous scope of the casualty count, came the unprecedented riots in New York City and Boston as the first draftees were called up under the new federal law. Anti-war judges began releasing men from the service duties using the writ of habeas corpus, resulting in Lincoln suspending this basic right in September. By doing so, Lincoln declared that he, as commander-in-chief, and the military did not have to honor court decisions. This made it easier for Lincoln’s many critics to charge he had assumed dictatorial powers.

The Union had also become more politically divided since the the war began. Lincoln’s Republican party suffered major losses in the 1862 midterm elections; the new Democratic majority in Indiana tried to assume control of all soldiers from that state and Illinois legislators wanted to send delegates to a rogue armistice convention in Louisville where peace would be negotiated.

The Emancipation Proclamation also divided the North. Outside of New England the Abolitionist movement was not as strong; Midwesterners typically didn’t want slavery to spread to new states, but were often indifferent to having it abolished. Following the Proclamation, propaganda spread that the Midwestern states were about to be “overrun with negroes, they will compete with you and bring down your wages…” So anxious were people about the rumors about immigration of former slaves that Lincoln was forced to debunk it in the State of the Union Address. Further alienating moderate Republicans, strident supporters of Lincoln formed “Loyal Leagues” that demanded local businesses declare full support of abolition or face a boycott.

In the South, Lee’s bedraggled army was at risk of collapse. There were not adequate rations or other basic supplies for the troops that survived Gettysburg or the 56,000 men who had just been released by Union forces at Vicksburg and other battle sites near the Mississippi River. Some states were no longer able to reliably support their regiments financially, leaving soldiers no option but to beg or steal food from farmers near their camps. Desertion became a major problem; by a month after Gettysburg, the Confederate War Department reported there were 136,000 soldiers absent without leave. Many simply went home but there were pockets of marauding deserters and draft-dodgers roaming the countryside. Near the Texas-Louisiana border it was reported an estimated 2,000 deserters had fortified an island on the Red River to serve as a base for raids on surrounding farms and plantations. The Confederate Armies had become armies of locusts laying waste their own land.

No less significant a crisis was the widespread belief in the South that they were losing the war because God was displeased. From the beginning Southerners were told from pulpit and podium that the war was a crusade against those ungodly sinners of the North, and if things were going badly they needed to get back in God’s favor, pronto. General Robert E. Lee called for a day of fasting and prayer for “a purer patriotism and more determined will” because “…we have forgotten his signal mercies, and have cultivated a revengeful, haughty and boastful spirit.” In the months following Gettysburg, a “Great Revival” whipped up evangelical enthusiasm among the troops in camp meetings that were intense and frequent, sometimes multiple times a day. One soldier wrote his regiment had not only become “members of the Church of the Living God, but professors of religion.”

Perhaps sensitive to this renewed Southern fevor, Lincoln added “under God” to the Gettysburg Address – words that do not appear in the version of the speech written down by his secretary at the White House before Lincoln left for Gettysburg.

 

Mr. Oates was also a well-respected lawyer, and there were two things about the Gettysburg Address that troubled his legal mind. The end of the speech particularly got under his skin: “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

He objected to Lincoln saying democracy would “perish from the earth” if the Union lost the war. Oates argued that Confederate soldiers – even though they “fought for a cause utterly wrong, utterly illogical and shocking to the sense of a fair man,” as he wrote in another essay – were “equally zealous, was as devoted to government of, for and by the people as was any Northern man who fought in that contest.”

Further, Oates argued, the United States of America wouldn’t have been harmed by having a Confederate  States of America next door:


To say that the establishment of the South as a separate government would destroy that character of government finds no justification in any process of reasoning from the then known facts. There were then abundant evidences of that stalwart spirit in the American people, both North and South, that would not permit that character of government to ‘perish from the earth,’ whether we remained one or became two distinct nations.

Read together with his 1910 essay, “The Southern States,” Oates’ central tenets appear: Although Oates strongly denounced slavery and was pleased the Union triumphed, he also agreed with Southerners who viewed the Civil War as “The War of Northern Aggression.” And while he admired Lincoln, he thought the president and other Northerners were so worked up over the slavery issue that they couldn’t see past it and recognize the South states had every right to spin off a government of their own, exactly as it was for the colonists in 1776. Holding such logically and morally complex and contradictory views reveals Mr. Oates as undoubtedly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time.

Our Mr. Oates didn’t take issue with Lincoln’s remarks about the “honored dead” who had “consecrated the ground” at Gettysburg, but certainly his older brother would have had strong opinions about that. Confederate Colonel William C. Oates had command of the 15th Alabama Regiment on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg and led them in the Battle of Little Round Top. Among the regiment was another Oates brother, John, who was wounded and left behind as the Rebels retreated in panic. John survived for three weeks in a Union field hospital near the battleground. Even while Lincoln was speaking, John’s body was still on the farm where he died, about two miles away. John’s name was written on a wooden marker and placed on the grave. By the end of the war, the marker was lost.

As Lincoln spoke, over a thousand bodies had already been buried at the Gettysburg soldier’s cemetery. That was less than half the total, and it would be another four months before the last soldier who died at Gettysburg would be buried there. Of course, that meant the last Union soldier, because the cemetery was only for them. When workers encountered a Confederate body, they left it at the same spot, only reburying it deeper down. By contrast, the government was treating the Union dead with tender care, endeavoring to make certain the identification was correct, sorting the caskets so soldiers could be buried next to comrades from their home state. Any mementos were carefully collected and saved for the fallen soldier’s nearest kin.

The Civil War had been over for seven years before private funds were raised to deal with the body of John Oates and the other dead Confederates. His body was among those taken to the Hollywood cemetery in Richmond, where about 2,000 Rebels who died at Gettysburg – most of them unidentifiable by that time – were placed in a mass grave. Record keeping was so poor that it took William Oates 45 years to even find out that much.

(That the Union forces chose to not deal with the Confederate dead remains a contemporary problem. Throughout the 20th century, Confederate remains kept turning up at Gettysburg, most recently in 1995. As there were about 1,500 Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg that are still unaccounted for, there are almost certainly many bodies undiscovered, according to the National Park Service.)

But give the Oates’ credit: If they disliked the Gettysburg Address, it was because they took issue with what Lincoln said. Others in the South hated it for more visceral reasons. In the days after the speech, Southern newspapers mostly ignored it; some ridiculed it as inconsequential or even silly; others claimed Lincoln didn’t even speak at the ceremony. The very few that printed the speech did so only after taking out the first line, with its inflammatory bit about all men being created equal.

After the surrender at Appomattox, Southern resentment over Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Address continued even after the Civil War generations began dying out. There’s a very good academic study (PDF) written by Jared Elliott Peatman that looks at Southern opinion of the Gettysburg Address as viewed through newspapers in Virginia.

For the century that followed, the South tried to pretend the Gettysburg Address didn’t exist. In most of the country it became customary for someone to recite the Gettysburg Address on Memorial Day; in the South, the custom was to have someone read General Robert E. Lee’s Farewell Address. No school district or college would consider a textbook that discussed the Gettysburg Address; the United Confederate Veterans formed a committee to make sure “long-legged Yankee lies” were not being taught. A 1909 list of history books approved by the state of Virginia did not include a single title about Lincoln or the Gettysburg Address, but it did include Confederate biographies and the Uncle Remus books.

Lincoln’s reputation in the South was rehabilitated after World War I – at the 1922 dedication Lincoln Memorial there were even a few very aged Confederate Army veterans attending in uniform. But the Gettysburg Address mostly continued to be shunned, even during the big fuss over it during the 1963 centennial. The Richmond News Leader of November 19, 1963, according to the Peatman study, presented an article titled, “Gettysburg Address: Unforgettable Words” which “…was, from start to finish, a condemnation of the Address’ literary style. Among the many faults the author pointed out were the repetition of verbs, the lack of punch, beginning the speech with a number, the brevity of the speech, the repetition of ‘great,’ and the use of various clichés.”

But why did the Gettysburg Address end up being the South’s Civil War Purity of View Litmus Test? Part of the hatred probably is simply because it explicitly said all men were created equal. Part was also because the speech was inexorably tied to Gettysburg, and the memories of what happened there – both the defeat and how poorly their dead were treated afterward – lingered as an open wound well into the 20th century. But there probably are still some like our Mr. Oates, who view the Gettysburg Address as unfairly demonizing them as being haters of American democratic ideals. Peatman’s study deserves the last word on the subject:


In 1858, Lincoln declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free… It will become all one thing or all the other.” But Lincoln was wrong. The story of Virginians’ reaction to the Gettysburg Address shows that when it comes to issues of race, and the remembrance of the struggle for freedom, as of 1963 the United States remained divided, with no prospect of soon becoming “all one thing or all the other.”

Adapted from remarks delivered at the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, November 16, 2013

LINCOLN

No one would detract an iota from the justly high estimate of Lincoln held by men. He was one of the greatest of his race, and today when all the passions that surged around him during life have died, foe and friend alike can and do extend full justice to that most unique and pathetic figure.

However, the American people on occasions become emotional and lose the power of discrimination. Truth is vastly more important than the interest of any man or than the memory of all men. It is a fine trait that yields willing and full mead of praise to him to whom it of right belongs; but it is a finer trait to do that and at the same time keep to the truth. The disposition today is to exaggerate and claim for Lincoln a stature not his in truth. Of course, to paraphrase the Gettysburg speech, it little matters what we here and now say; rather will he in the end be judged by what he then did. But we should seek to get at the core of things; to over-estimate any man is not justice to him or to others, and I have that confidence in Lincoln’s love of truth to feel that he would prefer to be judged as others are judged, and to be judged justly. The enthusiasts are trying to make a myth–a god–of his memory, all of which will fail as such things have failed all down the ages.

[..]

The one thing that I do not like in this hour of unstinted adulation is the unthinking, uncritical way in which Lincoln’s celebrated Gettysburg speech is praised. As a a composition it is excellent; as a means to an end it was a stroke of genius; as a truth — it will not stand. He was speaking of the Union soldiers who fought on that field, in the light of American institutions, and the essence of what he said is in this expression: “That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall have a new birth of freedom, that government of the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” This meant that the people of the South were trying to destroy “government of the people, for the people, by the people,” which was not true. The South was equally zealous, was as devoted to government of, for and by the people as was any Northern man who fought in that contest. Both sides equally desired that kind of government; nor was that kind of government in issue or in danger. The question is issue was rather whether there should be one government by, of and for the people North and another government by, of and for the people South, or one government for both.

Truth will not permit anyone to say that that kind of government in the North was in any sense menaced. No one so desired such government “to perish from the earth;” nor was anyone endeavoring to do anything which would produce such a result. Certainly the South was making no such effort. Had she been successful, the North would have had for herself “government by, of and for the people” just as she wanted it [and] just as she had it before; and so would the South, for her government, in that respect, was identical with the government established by the Fathers of the Republic. In truth, we might go further; as it was given to Lincoln to understand, he was, of course, telling the full truth, but in all honesty with prejudice laid aside, with a clearer light, we may ask, was he engaged in an enterprise that extended to the South “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in the sense of the Father’s work? Truth will not permit it to be said that he was. He was denying to the South that kind of government. The frozen truth is that Lincoln was trying to save the Union in a way that negated the idea of such government; and he in substance said at another time that he would do anything to preserve the Union. That it was best to save the Union may be admitted and I believe it was; but that was not what he said. He was speaking of a thing that might or might not exist in or out of the Union. To say that the Union was necessary in order that such government might exist will not do. That was not true then nor is it true now. What would have happened by way of change in that character of government North or South had the South succeeded, was then a matter of prophecy; and all the prophets have been dead for centuries. But to say that the establishment of the South as a separate government would destroy that character of government finds no justification in any process of reasoning from the then known facts. There were then abundant evidences of that stalwart spirit in the American people, both North and South, that would not permit that character of government to “perish from the earth,” whether we remained one or became two distinct nations, and there was not one fact tending to show that such government would “perish from the earth” if the South succeeded.

A recognition of this is due to the brave and devoted people of the South who fought and died in the firm and honest belief that a right to have a government of their own choice was as much the right of eight million of Americans then in the South as it was of three million of Colonists in 1776.

That it has come about since 1865 that the South has a full measure of that kind of government is due, not to the logical sequence of that war, but to the inherent love of that kind of government all over this Nation, North and South.

Since that war we have not lived up to that idea of government in dealing with others. This will not please our self-love; but it is a fact all the same. Read that phrase from Lincoln’s speech and then look at Puerto Rico and the Philippines and see, if one can, where that doctrine comes in. The very spirit of the war waged by the North for the Union was destructive, in its necessary tendencies, of the character of government Lincoln did not wish to “perish from the North.” I am not saying whether that idea is at all times the best; neither am I contending that it would have been for the best had the South succeeded. All that is aside from the question; for what is the best kind of government depends upon a multitude of things, and what is best for one people or one condition may not be so good for other people or for the same people under different conditions. This truth lies behind the reason for the government by, of and for the people, that they may change it when they do not like what they have. The power to change is the very essence of such a government; if this American government

There was enough of the great and good in Lincoln for an exceeding large mead of admiration and praise, but it should stop where he was wrong, as in that matter. Nor am I satisfied when I hear admirers of Lincoln claim that he was as great or greater than Washington. The equal of Washington never breathed the breath of life, and from present indications this estimate will stand forever as the truth of all the ages.

James W. Oates.
August, 1905.

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