BUSY BIRMINGHAM
The fact that a man may shut off his motor and coast downhill from his
home to his office in the lower part of Birmingham, is not without
symbolism. Birmingham is all business. If I were to personify the place,
it would be in the likeness of a man I know--a big, powerful fellow with
an honest blue eye and an expression in which self-confidence, ambition,
and power are blended. Like Birmingham, this man is a little more than
forty years of age. Like Birmingham, he has built up a large business of
his own. And, like Birmingham, he is a little bit naïve in his pride of
success. His life is divided between his office and his home, and it
would be difficult to say for which his devotion is the greater. He
talks business with his wife at breakfast and dinner, and on their
Sunday walks. He brings his papers home at night and goes over them with
her, for, though her specialty is bringing up the children, she is
deeply interested in his business and often makes suggestions which he
follows. This causes him to admire her intensely, which he would not
necessarily do were she merely a good wife and mother.
He has no hobbies or pastimes. True, he plays golf, but with him golf is
not a diversion. He plays because he finds the exercise increases his
efficiency ("efficiency" is perhaps his favorite word), and because many
of his commercial associates are golfers, and he can talk business with
them on the links.
His house is pleasant and stands upon a good-sized city lot. It is
filled with very shiny mahogany furniture and strong-colored portières
and sofa cushions. It is rather more of a house than he requires, for
his tastes are simple, but he has a feeling that he ought to have a
large house, for the same reason that he and his wife ought to dress
expensively--that is, out of respect, as it were, to his business.
One of his chief treasures is an automatic piano, upon which he rolls
off selections from Wagner's operas. He likes the music of the great
German because, as he has often told me, it stirs his imagination,
thereby helping him to solve business problems and make business plans.
The thing he most abhors is general conversation, and he is never so
amusing--so pathetically and unconsciously amusing--as when trying to
take part in general conversation and at the same time to conceal the
writhings of his tortured spirit. There is but one thing which will
drive him to attempt the feat, and that is the necessity of making
himself agreeable to some man, or the wife of some man, from whom he
wishes to get business.
The census of 1910 gave Birmingham a population of 132,000, and it is
estimated that since that time the population has increased by 50,000.
Birmingham not only knows that it is growing, but believes in trying to
make ready in advance for future growth. It gives one the impression
that it is rather ahead of its housing problems than behind them. Its
area, for instance, is about as great as that of Boston or Cleveland,
and its hotels may be compared with the hotels of those cities. If it
has not so many clubs as Atlanta, it has, at least, all the clubs it
needs; and if it has not so many skyscrapers as New York, it has several
which would fit nicely into the Wall Street district. Moreover, the tall
buildings of Birmingham lose nothing in height by contrast with the
older buildings, three or four stories high, which surround them, giving
the business district something of that look which hangs about a boy who
has outgrown his clothing. Nor are the vehicles and street crowds,
altogether in consonance, as yet, with the fine office buildings of the
city, for many of the motors standing at the curb have about them that
gray, rural look which comes of much mud and infrequent washing, and the
idlers who lean against the rich façades of granite and marble are
entirely out of the picture, for they look precisely like the idlers who
lean against the wooden posts of country railroad station platforms.
Such curious contrasts as these may be noted everywhere. For instance,
Birmingham has been so busy paving the streets that it seems quite to
have forgotten to put up street signs. Also, not far from the majestic
Tutwiler Hotel, and the imposing apartment building called the Ridgely,
the front of which occupies a full block, is a park so ill kept that it
would be a disgrace to the city but for the obvious fact that the city
is growing and wide-awake, and will, of course, attend to the park when
it can find the time. Here are, I believe, the only public monuments
Birmingham contains. One is a Confederate monument in the form of an
obelisk, and the other two are statues erected in memory of Mary A.
Cahalan, for many years principal of the Powell School, and of William
Elias B. Davis, a distinguished surgeon. Workers in these fields are too
seldom honored in this way, and the spirit which prompted the erection
of these monuments is particularly creditable; sad to say, however, both
effigies are wretchedly placed and are in themselves exceedingly poor
things. Art is something, indeed, about which Birmingham has much to
learn. So far as I could discover, no such thing as an art museum has
been contemplated. But here again the critic should remember that,
whereas art is old, Birmingham is young. She is as yet in the stage of
development at which cities think not of art museums, but of municipal
auditoriums; and with the latter subject, at least, she is now
concerning herself.
Even in the city's political life contrasts are not wanting, for though
the town is Republican in sentiment, it proves itself southern by voting
the Democratic ticket, and it is interesting to note further that the
commission by which it is governed had as one of its five members, when
we were there, a Socialist.
Another curious and individual touch is contributed by the soda-fountain
lunch rooms which abound in the city, and which, I judge, arrived with
the disappearance of barroom lunch counters. In connection with many of
the downtown soda fountains there are cooking arrangements, and business
lunches are served.
The roads leading out of the city in various directions have many
dangerous grade crossings, and accidents must be of common occurrence.
At all events, I have never known a city in which cemeteries and
undertaking establishments were so widely advertised. In the street
cars, for instance, I observed the cheerful placards of one Wallace
Johns, undertaker, who promises "all the attention you would expect from
a friend," and I was informed that Mr. Johns possesses business cards
(for restricted use only) bearing the gay legend: "I'll get you yet!"
As to schools the city is well off. Dr. J.H. Phillips, superintendent of
public schools, has occupied his post probably as long as any school
superintendent in the country. He organized the city school system in
1883, beginning with seven teachers, as against 750 now employed. The
colored schools are reported to be better than in most southern cities.
Of the general status of the negro in Birmingham I cannot speak with
authority. As in Atlanta, negroes are sometimes required to use separate
elevators in office buildings, and, as everywhere south of Washington,
the Birmingham street cars give one end to whites and the other to
negroes. But whereas negroes use the back of the car in Atlanta, they
use the front in Birmingham. It was attempted, at one time, to reverse
this order, for reasons having to do with draft and ventilation, but the
people of Birmingham had become accustomed to the existing arrangement
and objected to the change. "After all," one gentleman said to me, in
speaking of this matter, "it is not important which end of the car is
given to the nigger. The main point is that he must sit where he is
told."
The means by which the negro vote is eliminated in various Southern
States are generally similar, though Alabama has, perhaps, been more
thorough in the matter than some other States. The importance of this
issue to the southern white man is very great, for if all negroes were
allowed to vote the control of certain States would be in negro hands.
To the Southerner such an idea is intolerable, and it is my confident
belief that if the State of Alabama were resettled by men from
Massachusetts, and the same problems were presented to those men, they
would be just as quick as the white Alabamans of to-day to find means to
suppress the negro vote. With all my heart I wish that such an exchange
of citizens might temporarily be effected, for when the immigrants from
Massachusetts moved back to their native New England, after an
experience of the black belt, they would take with them an
understanding of certain aspects of the negro problem which they have
never understood; an understanding which, had they possessed it sixty or
seventy years ago, might have brought about the freeing of slaves by
government purchase--a course which Lincoln advocated and which would
probably have prevented the Civil War, and thereby saved millions upon
millions of money, to say nothing of countless lives. Had they even
understood the problems of the South at the end of the Civil War, the
horrors of Reconstruction might have been avoided, and I cannot too
often reiterate that, but for Reconstruction we should not be perplexed,
to-day, by the unhappy, soggy mass of political inertia known as the
Solid South.
I asked a former State official how the negro vote had been eliminated
in Alabama. "At first," he said, "we used to kill them to keep them from
voting; when we got sick of doing that we began to steal their ballots;
and when stealing their ballots got to troubling our consciences we
decided to handle the matter legally, fixing it so they couldn't vote."
I inquired as to details. He explained.
It seems that in 1901 a constitutional convention was held, at which it
was enacted that, in order to be eligible for life to vote, citizens
must register during the next two years. There were, however, certain
qualifications prescribed for registration. A man must be of good
character, and must have fought in a war, or be the descendant of a
person who had fought. This enactment, known as the "grandfather
clause," went far toward the elimination of the negro. As an additional
safeguard, however, an educational clause was added, but the educational
requirement did not become effective at once, as that would have made
illiterate whites ineligible as voters. Not until the latter were safely
registered under the "grandfather clause," was the educational clause
applied, and as, under this clause, the would-be voter must read and
write _to the satisfaction of his examiner_, the negro's chance to get
suffrage was still more reduced.
The United States Supreme Court has, I believe, held that the
educational clause does not constitute race discrimination.
As though the above measures were not sufficient, it is further required
that, in order to vote at November elections in Alabama, voters must pay
a small voluntary poll tax. This tax, however, must be paid each year
before February first--that is, about nine months before elections
actually take place. The negro has never been distinguished for his
foresightedness with a dollar, and, to make matters harder for him, this
tax is cumulative from the year 1901, so that a man who wishes to begin
to vote this year, and can qualify in other respects, must pay a tax
amounting to nearly twenty dollars.
These measures give Alabama, as my informant put it, a "very exclusive
electorate." With a population of approximately two millions, the
greatest number of votes ever cast by the State was 125,000. Of this
number, 531 votes were those of negroes, "representing" a colored
population of 840,000!
The gentleman who explained these matters also told me a story
illustrative of the old-time Southerner's attitude toward the negro in
politics.
During Reconstruction, when Alabama's Legislature was about one-third
white and two-thirds negro, a fine old gentleman who had been a
slaveholder and was an experienced parliamentarian, was attempting to
preside over the Legislature. In this he experienced much difficulty,
his greatest _bête noir_ being a negro member, full of oratory, who
continually interrupted other speakers.
Realizing that this was a part of the new order of things, the presiding
officer tried not to allow his irritation to get the better of him, and
to silence the objectionable man in parliamentary fashion. "The member
will kindly come to order!" he repeated over and over, rapping with his
gavel. "The member will kindly come to order!"
After this had gone on for some time without effect, the old gentleman's
patience became exhausted. He laid down his gavel, arose to his feet,
glared at the irrepressible member, and, shaking his finger savagely,
shouted: "Sit down, you blankety-blank black blankety-blank!"
Whereupon the negro dropped instantly to his seat and was no more heard
from.