The Ruffin Letter #2: “The Democratic Plan of Campaign,” part 1

Source: Union Republican, Winston-Salem, NC (15 Sept 1898, 4).

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This post is part of an ongoing series to understand the situation in 1895 when several hundred people, mostly African American men, guarded the Forsyth County Jail in Winston (now Winston-Salem), North Carolina, to protect a young African American man from lynching. My main goal is to understand the background and, to the extent possible, the motivation of the almost fifty men known by name to have participated in the action to protect Arthur Tuttle.
     In this part of the series, I am reviewing two anonymous letters published in the Winston Union Republican during the electoral campaign of 1898. Although these letters were written three years after the incident in question, they provide a contemporary view of the political situation, albeit from a white perspective. The writer is blind to the the failure of the Republicans to treat African Americans fairly, a failure that contributed to the 1898 electoral and moral debacle. To quote from a previous post (“An Introduction to the Background: Suicide Wrapped in an Illusion”; see below for the link), “To some extent, white Republicans were willing to grant a degree of political equality to blacks, but they resisted social equality, particularly in any setting that brought black men into relations with white women or placed blacks in authority over whites. Only a courageous genius could have navigated those stormy straits. But white Republicans—reluctant to appoint their African American allies to lucrative patronage positions or elect them to higher office—were not courageous or generous, and were all too were eager to find an excuse to abandon the backbone of the party.”
      Why then print the letters? The writer may be blind to the faults of his own side, but he is acutely aware of the manipulative and racist bloody-mindedness of his Democratic opponents. 

The posts that have brought us to this point are:

• "'Pluck Enough': The Story So Far”
• "'Pluck Enough': An Introduction to the Background: Suicide Wrapped in an Illusion" 
• "'Pluck Enough': A Note on Methodology”
• “The Ruffin Letter #1—A Survey of Political History in NC, 1865-1898”

     The second letter is longer than the first and reflects recent speeches and action by Democrats reported in the press. I have divided it into two parts. The purpose of the letter is to describe the “arguments” with which the Democrats will conduct the 1898 campaign. It labels as arguments the following means of persuasion and intimidation—the Democratic party handbook, cartoons (presumably editorial cartoons), the rally, demagogic speeches, and the threat of violence.
     In the second part of the letter, the writer will discuss the Democrats’ abuse of language and their use of a false analogy between the period of Reconstruction after the war and the period of Republican-Populist rule after the elections of 1894 and 1896.
     Throughout, the writer fails to acknowledge the weakness of the coalition (the Fusion) of Republicans and Populists opposing the Democrats. After their successful campaigns in 1894 and especially 1896, the coalition had achieved many of the legislative goals they agreed on, for example, capping interest rates, moving control of local government from the legislature to local voters, and reforming the election machinery to ensure an accurate count of the vote. But they disagreed on the way forward. All they offered in the 1898 election was opposition to the Democrats.
 
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Mr. Editor:
     The position of this State’s Democracy being grounded in hatred and hypocritical pretense, it follows logically that the plan of campaign shall harmonise [sic] with the position. That it does so, it will be the burden of this article to show by noticing their chief arguments in the order of their importance. On what means then does Democracy base its expectations of a return to power? If Democratic press reports are to be credited, the hand-book is to play an important role. It has been long in preparation by a committee of experts and past grand masters in the art of deceiving and missleading [sic] the people. Too little is known of it yet to review it here, but it is heralded as a terrible engine of destruction. I would simply caution Republicans and Populists not to be swept off their feet by this book which may have to be withdrawn for repairs before the campaign is over. On the other hand if they have succeeded in getting out a hand-book that will stand the vicissitudes of a heat [sic] campaign, let them have fun with it, as it would be cruelty to require them to make two campaigns without a hand-book to go by. This may be termed the hand-book argument.
     The next is the cartoon argument. The people have some experience with this argument, so they are somewhat prepared to estimate it at its true value. They once saw pictures of Vice-President Morton closing out this State under mortgage, but they remember that he was elected and the sale never really came off. The cartoon is not likely to cut much figure except as a boomerang.
     [para break inserted] The next, while not entirely new, presents some novelty in that it is intended to influence the judgment by way of the stomach, and may be denominated argument through the stomach. This is an old racket worked over and more formidable to meet. What then, is there is the much heralded politico-social pic-nic, the grand rally, with farfamed bands of music, the presence of the beauty and chivalry, barbecued meats, and Democratic oratory galore? Ostensibly, here is an altogether praise-worthy affair, a day off with much good things to eat, good fellowship, and just a little politics thrown in for variety and diversion. Give me your attention while I unmasque this humbug, for here, as in everything touched by Democracy, is hypocritical pretense and deception
     [para break inserted] The object of the grand rally is not for pleasure and entertainment, but to get votes, to accomplish by circumlocution what is unattainable in the open. The underlying purpose is to influence a class of voters for whom inwardly, the Democracy entertains the most hearty contempt, the common laborer, the presumption being that he will sell his vote for a mess of meat. Lured to the grounds by flaming hand-bills, after seeing the crowd and listening to the music, the physical appetite after awhile [sic] begins to assert itself. He sees the fat of the land which a liberal campaign fund has provided spread out before him, with the very first society in waiting, with most bewitching smiles, inviting him to eat, drink, and make himself welcome. If he yields, he compromises his self-respect, and from the stand-point of the campaign committee enters into a tacit agreement to deliver his vote in November. What! eat Democratic meat, and then vote against the party? Will a campaign committee invest three to five hundred dollars in a big spread merely in the interest of good fellowship? Is there anyone so unsophisticated as not see in a grand rally a very serious and shrewd form of business politics?
     It must be granted for this argument that it bears the stamp of antiquity, for away back in the dawn of history did not the wily Jacob put up a job on his brother Esau by which the latter forfeited his birthright? As to the origin of this argument, we get a further glimpse from the latter incident in which the Saviour, after the forty days fast, was approached by Satan with the proposition: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”
     Another point to this argument is its appeal to another weakness of human nature—the disposition to float with the current, to go with the multitude, irrespective of the merits of the question at issue. The grand rally to the voter without entitled convictions is expected to produce the impression, by the force of numbers, that there is only one side, the Democratic. For effect in other parts of the State the number actually present is exaggerated till the proverbial fish-liar has become a back number and not to be compared to the Democratic liar who counts the number present at a grand rally.
     [para break added] The Democracy having lost the election machinery of the State, and with it the power to count in its ticket, it is driven in this year of grace to rest its case wholly on its ability to deceive a majority of the voters, so this brings me next to consider the strongest card, at least, from the Democratic standpoint, the inflammatory shriek of the demagogue. He is to be much in evidence at the grand rally, and is expected to get in his work on a full stomach. Let it be understood that he has the unqualified endorsement of an unscrupulous State press, both the gold bug and free silver wings flapping together in substantial harmony. Masquerading in the uniform of a patriot, arrogating to himself the guardianship of the State’s honor, he assumes to represent the virtue and intelligence of the State, and to be engaged in waging an altogether unselfish warfare against official corruption and incompetency, and in the interest of good government and the peaceful reign of law and order, all unconscious that the means and methods to make good his claims are an insult to the intelligence and law abiding sentiment which he feigns to represent. The devil is never so dangerous as when he assumes the form of an angel of light.
     Let’s pull aside the lion’s skin that the ass’s ears may come into view. Let’s strip the cloak of virtue off hypocrisy. Vainglorious old Democratic humbug! Inglorious old fraud! Your cheek is colossal, your effrontery is mountain high. You have not had an issue since the war. You have only had a cry, a wail, a shriek—white man! n***r get you! Nor have you an issue now. Tariff reform? Free silver? Merely different forms of soothing balm for the consciences of those who shrink from more drastic measures. Listen to ex-American tourist to Europe, Bellamy on tariff reforms and free silver: “These are our tenets, but they are to some extent secondary in this campaign,” and half a minutes [sic] time is all he takes to enumerate these profound doctrines and his position thereon! [Bellamy was from a prominent family in Wilmington and a Democratic candidate for Congress. He was a key figure in the Red Shirt movement and the Wilmington coup, both intended to suppress the Black vote in anticipation of constitutional changes to disenfranchise African Americans and many poor whites. At this time he was crisscrossing the state giving inflammatory speeches.] I charge the State Democracy that just now, while it is posing as the self-appointed guardian of the State’s honor, and the gratuitous champion of “law and order” that through its campaign shriekers and State press, it is dragging the good name of the State in the mire, is by false accusation, casting suspicion on its credit, is by mean insinuation stabbing one of its most sacred institutions; and by incendiary appeal, is fomenting sedition, anarchy and bloodshed. The highwayman accosts the traveler with the alternative, your money or your life!

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