Talk:Cole L. Blease

Untitled
For clarification, I was the person who originally wrote this article; it was before I had created this userid. -- Bruce E. Baker, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Blease as Governor

I think there are a couple of edits needed to this section. First, it doesn't make much sense to say "his influence thereafter declined and his repeated attempts to win high office usually ended in failure" and then in the next paragraph discuss his election to the U.S. Senate in 1924. Without getting into all the nuances of S.C. politics at this time, I think we can see the World War I period and the administration of Richard I. Manning as the moment when the Progressive Era comes to South Carolina. Blease returns to favour during the more reactionary 1920s. Second, we need to say something here about Blease's outspoken support for lynching during his tenure in office as governor. He's best know for his 1930s comment about lynching and the Constitution, but he probably actually did more to facilitate and condone lynching while he was governor. Bruce E Baker 23:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Convict Leasing

No discussion of a Southern Governor during the Jim Crow period is complete without discussing convict leasing. The various southern states had either little or few prisons, and upon conviction, various individuals and corporate entities would pay the State for the privilege of the prisoner's labor. Conditions of this servitude were limited to various levels of horrible. (Oversight was all but non-existent.) Blease, I believe, was the first governor to pardon larger numbers of convicted men. While it is difficult to determine motives, there are indications that his desire was to end the brutal and inhumane treatment. He was a role model (this from Donaghey's autobiography) for Governor George Donaghey of Arkansas, who pardoned 400 men and ended convict leasing in Arkansas (two thirds of those pardoned were Negroes). Many Southern states followed suit, but I believe that Blease was the first. For a detailed reading of this, I am pursuing "One Dies, Get Another," by Matthew Mancini. The Arkansas Historical Library, Little Rock, has a very rare copy of a convict-written book: Story of the Arkansas Penitentiary by William N. Hill, dealing specifically with the heinous conditions, particularly in railroad work of that era. I've read that book, myself. homebuilding76.213.128.30 (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Questionable derivation of statement
The article reads: "Blease acquired such a bad reputation that he was said to represent the worst aspects of Jim Crow and Benjamin Tillman; Tillman branded Blease's style as "Jim Tillmanism", (Jim Tillman being Ben Tillman's nephew, who as lieutenant governor had killed a newspaper editor, and been acquitted in the case)."

The clear implication of the nature of this mention of both "Jim Crow" and "Benjamin Tillman" is that "Jim Tillmanism" represents a synthesis of the two; would B. Tillman be likely to remind everyone of his nephew's transgression in attacking his enemy? What was B. Tillman's view of his nephew? If they were opposed, it makes more sense for B. Tillman, in criticising Blease, to simultaneously cast aspersion on his nephew; if however they were not, B. Tillman's accusation of Blease's "Jim Tillmanism" might, as the article implies with the first quoted sentence above, refer to the synthesis of "Jim Crow" and "Benjamin Tillman".

Given that "He engineered elections of his candidates to governor, secured the acquittal of his nephew, Lieutenant Governor James H. Tillman, for murder..." (https://www.clemson.edu/about/history/bios/ben-tillman.html) one may conclude their relationship was not a poor one, in which case B. Tillman would be unlikely to refer to Blease in terms reflecting critically upon his nephew. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.112.54 (talk) 16:33, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Common name
Regarding the move of this page, Cole L. Blease (45%) and Cole Blease (45%) are the only iterations of Blease's name that constitute over 5% of references to him on newspapers.com. While some some of these references to him are an abbreviation (e.g. "Cole. L. Blease"), most are not, and the use of Cole (50k) vs Coleman (6k) is overwhelming. Star Garnet (talk) 16:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC)