d intimidation which still
continued in the South, but he had apparently concluded that federal
intervention only aggravated the problem. In his opinion Southern
gentlemen were not thieves and cut-throats; they too were educated,
civilized, and Christians. The fact that they were not aware of the
brutality in their midst and that some of them undoubtedly participated
in it, bewildered him. He was willing to proceed on the assumption that,
if the Southern whites were left alone, they would, as they asserted,
treat the ex-slave honestly and fairly. Hayes seemed unaware that men
could be educated, civilized, and claim to be Christians while at the
same time behaving as bigots and racists. To satisfy the industrialists
in the North and the white conservatives in the South, Hayes buried the
last remains of Reconstruction. However, he made a one-sided compromise.
While he comitted himself to immediate action, the South was only bound
by vague promises to be fulfilled at some indefinite date. At the end of
his term white supremacy in the South was more firmly rooted than it had
been when he took office.

The New Racism

For several years the fate of the Southern Negro hung in the balance.
With home rule restored, the South, so it seemed, had achieved its goals.
Bourbon whites, the remnant of the plantation aristocracy, dominated the
Southern Democratic party and through it controlled state and local
governments. There was a growing discontent among small farmers who
wanted the state governments to alter the tax burden and interest rates
in their favor. Largely spearheaded by the Populist movement, Negro and
white farmers came to see that their interests were identical. The
Southern Farmers' Alliance grew rapidly, and it encouraged the formation
of the colored farmers' organizations with which it was closely allied.
In Georgia, Tom Watson led the attempt to form a coalition between Negro
and white farmers against the interests of the conservative white
aristocracy. Hopes for a genuinely popular government and for a society
free from racial tension reached a high level.

Unfortunately, some Negroes continued to back the Democratic party.
House servants had always felt close to the gentry, and many of them
remembered that poor white farmers had always been particularly
prejudiced against them. In turn, conservatives deliberately encouraged
racial hatred in order to drive a wedge between poor whites and Negroes
within the r