Images (178)
Showing first 60 of 178 pages.
Document
| id |
id
145807634
|
|---|---|
| contentType |
contentType
document
|
| source |
source
import
|
Source image fields (6)
Extracted text
OCR Page 1 of 178HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI
January 26, 1950
President Harry S. Truman
White House
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir:
I was born in 1872, and am a native Mississippian. I
represented my State in the Mississippi Senate for twelve
years, and in 1932 I introduced the first bill that has ever
been introduced in the United States, as far as I have any
record, to exempt homesteads from taxation, which we did later
on to a valuation of $5,000.00. I helped to place practically
all of the progressive legislation we have on our Statute Book
into law, such as equalizing the public school funds, removing
the taxes from all cattle and livestock in the State, which
has caused us to have more fine cattle and dairies than most
any other State. I was the means of passing the legislation
that was necessary to bring T.V.A. electricity into the State
through the Senate, and I was one that helped to get the fine
highways we have in our State, etc.
The reason I mention this, is I want you to know that I
am a progressive in politics just as you are, and I want to
compliment you on your stand for the people, but you are advo-
cating one thing that will practically destroy the progressive
work we have done in the State in the last few years in build-
ing up our State, if that legislation is passed. It may be
best for all the States in the Union, except Mississippi; we
have a situation here quite different to that of any other
State. We have a population of about fifty-fifty between the
two races, and after the Civil War, when the negro race voted
in Mississippi, the carpetbaggers and scalawags and negroes
controlled our politics and as you khow, a negro doesn't
vote for a white person as long as they have force enough to
elect a negro. This has been demonstrated in New York and
in Chicago.
We at one time, as the record will show, were represented
in the United States Senate by Senators Bruce and Revels, two
negroes, and in Congress by a negro by the name of Lynch, and
perhaps some other negroes. We had the State Superintendent
of Education who was over our educational system in Mississippi,
a negro, our lieutenant governor was a negro. The legislature
was composed almost entirely of negroes, except perhaps thirty
or forty and they were carpetbaggers and scalawags.
If we hadn't worked some way to get rid of that situation,
the Lord knows what would have become of Mississippi.
Relations
belongs_to