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EXTRACTS FROM HATTON W SUMNERS LETTERS – Ed Sebesta 8/2/2020

Abbreviations are DMN for Dallas Morning News, DTH for Dallas Time Herald, and
HWS for Hatton W. Sumners, and DHS for the Dallas Historical Society.

The records at the DHS are Box, then file designations which are two digits. So looking
at the records 70.3.2 would be Box 70 and the folder would be 3.2.

1. Letter from HWS to W.A. Holford, editor of The Garland News,

Jan. 31, 1922. DHS Box 70.3.2. (Holford’s paper had an article
against the federal anti-lynching act.)

January 31, 1922

Mr. W.A. Holford

Garland,
Texas.

My dear Will:

I have seen the article appearing in your issue of the 20th inst., with reference to
my fight against the anti-lynching bill and thank you very much for the interest which
you have manifested in same.

I have been very much distressed by the attitude taken by some of the Southern
papers who evidently do not understand what that measure means. The most serious
feature of the whole matter is that the vast majority of Republican Member who voted
for the bill did so against their judgment with reference to the governmental policy
involved and with full believe that the provisions of the measure are in violation of the
Constitution.

We have reached a new development with regard to the racial questions, and
one which brings with it the gravest sort of peril to the white people and the
law-abiding black people of the South. For the first time in the history of this country
the negroes of the North are organized along racial lines. They are
demanding the right to determine the policy of the Republican Party towards the
racial question of the South. Those Northern negroes who live in sections of the
country where their numbers are not large enough to develop the demand for racial
segregation, when they visit the South where a different condition obtains, meet a
condition which very much offends them. They hold the balance of political power in
many of the Congressional districts of the North and hold the balance of power in the
Presidential elections in many of the States. They no longer vote for individual
members of the Republican Party out of gratitude for their liberation. They threaten
the individual members with defeat in the primary elections unless they are permitted
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to control his vote in matters of this sort and hold the threat of opposition in the
general election.

I am not speculating about this. I have been told this by many Members of
Congress from the North and East. Unless we have a most fortunate development of
circumstances, we are going to have the stress and tragedy of the old carpet-bag
regime reenacted in the South.

#2.

The things which militated against our fight more than everything else were the
editorials from Southern papers which the proponents of this bill were able to read,
and that is why it seemed to be necessary to make the appeal which I made.

With kindest personal regards, I am

Sincerely your friend,

HWS-rw

[Boldface added.]

< There is a Holford Road in Garland, Texas. Whether it is related to W.A. Holford
or his family I don’t know.>
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2. Letter from HWS to Mr. Alvah B. Flood, of Camas, Montana, Feb.

1, 1922. DHS Box 71.2.4.

<In this letter to Flood you can see Sumners’ views on race all in one document.
Note that Sumners’ reference to sheep and cows implies a dissimilarity of races of
that of different species. There is a reaffirmation of white hostility towards
Japanese Americans in the letter also. All Boldfaces in the letter are added.>

February 1,
1922.
Mr. Alvah B. Flood
Camas,
Montana.

My dear Mr. Flood:

I am in receipt of your communication of the 17th ult. And in all sincerity,

will say to you that I do not recall having received, since I have been a Member of
Congress, a communication from anyone the spirit of which I appreciate more
than that which runs through your entire letter.

I realize that it is very difficult for one whose contact with the race question
is as limited as yours has been to understand the racial psychology which develops
out of the situation in the South. In so far as I can myself analyze the attitude of
the average Southern man, in so far as the social attitude towards the negro is
concerned, that attitude grows out of the instinct of racial segregation rather than
out of the attitude of animosity, and his attitude towards the negro
politically is determined by racial psychology, which the individual
does not control, which is not dependent upon any voluntary mental
conclusions on the part of the individual.

The political domination of the South by the white man is

essential to his own preservation and is probably to the best interest of
the negro. I am not regarded here, and I believe I am not one of those profound
anti-negro persons whom we sometimes find in the South, but I recognize that as a
white man living under conditions which carry with them a threat against the
dominant position of the white race, I am under the call of my race. The possibility
of the whites living together with the negroes in such large numbers is dependent
upon the development of a very high degree of racial segregation and upon
white political domination.

I am sending herewith copy of an address delivered by myself some time

ago dealing somewhat with the fundamentals of this situation. As I have intimated
in my address on the anti-lynching bill, there is much in what has happened to the
negro to indicate the working ot of some plan which makes p a part of the big
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outlines of world development, which big outlines, as you must know, men do not
control. He was a savage in Africa where climate and con-
#2
ditions of life were against his possibility of development. The negro has never
shown any governmental ability when left to his own determination, nor any
ability to develop free from the influences of coercion. Only the institution of
slavery could bring him from the savage environments because he
possessed neither the brain nor the training, nor the inclination to
work, which would have made him attractive as an employee. Slavery
brought him into close contact with civilization and under a social
relationship which made him work, and thereby learn how to work.
When he was freed, he was deprived of the opportunity to make the government of
the Southern States, where he was numerically in the majority, governmentally
what Haiti, what Cuba and what Liberia were.

My judgement is that the final acute developments of the racial situation

will come north of the Mason and Dixon line. We have established a social and
political relationship with the black man which makes it impossible for his
presence to imperial the whites as a race, or to imperil the governmental
institutions which the genius of the white race has established. That is not true of
the North, and when they increase, as they will increase in that section the
difficulties of adjustment will be very great.

I note what you have to say with regard to the one negro who ate with you.
Your attitude was entirely a natural attitude. It would have been my attitude under
the same conditions and environments under which you have been raised.

Not long ago I had occasion to travel for 1500 miles through the stock-
raising section of my State. In many pastures I saw large numbers of cattle, with
large numbers of sheep and a few cows in one heard and large numbers of cows
and a few sheep in another herd, but in no pasture did I see large numbers of
sheep and large numbers of cows in the same herd. After the deer in the western
part of my State were greatly reduced in number, it was not unusual for a few deer
to come up with the cow herds, but nobody ever saw a large herd of deer and a
large herd of cattle together. God drew the lines of racial cleavage and no one
can tell until the test is made whether the or not the different races are so
dissimilar that they cannot live together on the lane of social equality They can no
more tell about that than they could have told that water and oil would not mix
until the test was made. But when the test is made and large numbers of different
races are placed in contact with each other, the result
#3
Settles the matter. It is not primarily a question of superiority or inferiority
as is shown by the attitude of the white man when large numbers of Japanese
come among them.
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But I find that I am making this letter entirely too long and am dictating it
very hurriedly, so I must conclude, directing my secretary to enclose the short
address referred to.

Your generous attitude is responsible for this imposition upon your time.

Very sincerely yours,

HWS-rw

3. Letter from HWS to Earle B. Mayfield, Railroad Commissioner,

Feb. 2, 1922. DHS Box 70.3.2. (Mayfield was a Klan backed candidate for
office.)

February 2, 1922

Hon. Earle B. Mayfield

Railroad Commission of Texas,
Austin, Texas.

My dear Friend:

Your letter of the 28th ult., has been received and I am sending you herewith, in
compliance with your request, a copy of the Immigration Act of May 19, 1921.

I appreciate your statement with regards to my fight on the Dyer anti-lynching bill.
We were able to hold almost a solid Democratic vote against this Bill. And if it had been
possible to have the Republicans vote their independent judgments, we would have
defeated the Bill by a much larger majority than it passed the House, but the unfortunate
fact and the dangerous fact is that the negroes have organized in the North now
for the first time and are demanding the right to control the legislative policy of the
Republican Party with regard to matters of this sort.

With kindest personal regards, I am

Very sincerely yours,

HWS-rw.

[Boldface added.]

4. Letter from HWS to Helen H. Groce, Feb. 5, 1923. DHS Box 71.1.13.
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<HWS explains to Ms. Groce that a bill establishing an education department and
providing funds for the schools would eventually be a threat to white supremacy. The
South in this time was very poor and this bill would have tremendously benefited
Southern schools, yet fear of losing white supremacy triumphs everything with
Sumners. A department of education would not be created until decades in the
future.>

….

Now, you and myself are both very young people yet. I venture this statement,
that when it does pass, that particular group to which you refer will not be slow in
working their way into that national organization which controls the distribution of
those funds. Now, you mark my word on this point: And that is not all. If we live out
our allotted time, we will wish we had back the control of our own schools and the
expenditure of our own money, and we will never be able to get it back.

There is another thing which I have hesitated to say, because a great many
people who do not have the opportunity to see what I see might think I am suggesting
it merely to scare people off, but I saw last year the board of local control of the
schools here put into effect a regulation which authorized the negro children to
use the libraries of the white schools, and vice versa. I saw last year men vote for
the so-called “Anti-lynching” Bill under the coercion of the organized negro vote
in their Districts,

#3.

Who are ashamed beyond measure of that vote. For the first time the negro
vote is organized along racial lines and they are demanding the Republican party, as
the price of their continued support, the right to fix the racial question in the South.
The negroes now constitute the balance of political power in many of the States. They
are growing with continued rapidity in all sections of the North. They will soon
constitute the balance of political power in many more States, and when the States
shall have surrendered to the Federal Government the right to levy taxes for the
maintenance of the schools, and therefore provide the regulations under which the
States may participate in the distribution of the money raised by taxation, it will
require only one little act of the national Congress to compel the South to break
down the racial barriers, in total or in part, in its school systems, before it is
entitled to receive its share of this money.

….

[Boldface added]
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5. Letter from HWS to Mr. Geo. W. Walton, March 20, 1924. DHS
Box 71.1.13.

<Sumners starts this letter explaining how he believes that the European immigrants
that are coming to the United States will not make good American citizens. Then he
gets into how a bill to establish a department of education will endanger white
supremacy.
You can see how Sumners’ talk of too much bureaucracy supports his plan to limit
federal government so it isn’t a threat to white supremacy. Again, though there would
be some overhead costs of administrating support for education, it would be a
transfer of money from affluent areas to areas which didn’t have much money in the
first place for education and these areas would greatly benefit.>
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March 20, 1924

Mr. Geo. W. Walton,

4131 Cole Avenue,
Dallas, Texas,

My dear Friend:

I am receipt of your communication of the 17th instant and beg to advise you
that I am very strongly in favor of the restriction of immigration.

Government in this country rests on the private citizen. Each one has his share
of the weight of governmental responsibility to bear. It is an unwise public policy to
admit into the body of our citizenship people unable to bear their share of
governmental responsibility and it is also true that large groups of unassimilated
peoples in the body of a citizenship causes trouble the same as indigested and
unassimilated food in the human body causes trouble.

As to the Towner-Sterling Bill, I am having much difficulty with this

proposition. I have been up here now for a good while. I have been studying the
machinery of government in actual operation. I have seen the absorption of
governmental responsibility by the Federal government proceeding with ever-
increasing rapidity. I have seen the distinctive characteristics of the Federal
government changing from those of representative government to a bureaucratic
government with a rapidity unequalled in the history of the world. We now have an
entire Federal appointed personnel getting close to six hundred thousand, with less
than six hundred elected representatives of the people. These elected representatives
are so crowded with the duties which they are compelled to discharge that they do not
properly discharge these duties. They have practically no time to supervise for the
people the appointed personnel.

As a result, it is coming about that instead of the people of the national

government governing themselves through their selected agents, they are actually
governed by the people with regards to whose selection they have had no direct voice.
In other words, they are governed by bureaus.

The enactment of the Towner-Sterling bill not only means the creation of
another great bureau, but it means ultimately the putting of the free school system of
this country under the control of a Federal bureau. Not only is that true, but it means
that a good deal of the money which ought to go for the education of the children, for
the payment of salaries to the school-teachers, and to improve school buildings, would
go to pay the salaries of

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Hundreds and perhaps thousands of additional clerks here in Washington and

to pay for a fine building in which to house this activity.
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Not only that, but the Southern people had better think more than once before
they consent that the Federal government should have the power to control the
schools within the Southern States. For the first time since the negro came to America,
he is organized along racial political lines. He has come to hold the balance of power
in a vast section of the United States. In fact, he holds the balance of power to a very
large degree in the nation itself. More and more he is demanding as the price of his
continued allegiance to the Republican Party that he be permitted to determine the
policy of the national government towards the race question in the South.

I will not undertake to discuss this matter in detail, but to give you a glimpse
into the various difficulties which confront me and the things which make me hesitate
before agreeing to surrender to the Federal government control over the public
schools of any State. I am quite aware of the fact that the terms of the bill do not
provide that, but if this bill is enacted, that result is inevitable. About that I have no
question.

I am sending you under separate cover copy of a speech delivered by me in

reference to a bill which the Association for the Advancement of the Colored Race is
responsible for and which the influence of that Association put through the House of
Representatives by a vote of almost two to one. It was defeated in the Senate only by a
long filibuster.

I have written you at considerable length concerning this matter because I

anxious to have your reaction with regards to same. I have no concern except to do
what is best for my people, but having definite responsibility and being in a position to
look at these questions from nearly every angle, I cannot properly discharge that
responsibility by acting upon a great public matter under the urge of any one
consideration.

Sincerely your friend,

HWS-rw

6. Letter from HWS to Mr. W.H. Francis, 5/12/1937. DHS Box 75.8.5.
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<W.H. Francis is the general consul for the Magnolia Petroleum Co., in the
Magnolia Petroleum Co. building. What Hatton W. Sumners is thanking him for is
getting some anti-lynching articles from the Southern Methodist University (SMU),
articles Sumners for which Sumners couldn’t ask for himself. In short Francis was
spy for Sumners in getting information for Sumners’ effort to prevent the passage
of federal anti-lynching legislation, an effort that Sumners kept up into the 1940s
and he retired from office.

Sumners had the support of the Dallas establishment. Next time you see the
Pegasus horse think of Francis helping to prevent the passage of anti-lynching
legislation. Also, don’t assume that SMU were heroes, they went on to treat
Sumners as a hero when he retired.

In DHS Box 75 folder 8.9 is a copy of Studies in Sociology, Vol. 1 No.1 Summer
1936, published by SMU about a lynching in Texas. The letter is in Box 75 also in
folder 8.5. This is the publication sent by Francis to Sumners.>

May 12, 1937

Mr. W.H. Francis,

Magnolia Petroleum Co.,
Dallas, Texas.

My dear Bill:

Thanks very much for the copy of the SMU publication just received.

I am sending herewith a copy of my speech on the Anti-Lynching Bill. If it were

not for the fact that negroes now constitute the balance of political power, and are
voting now largely as a racial entity, this fight could unquestionably be won. The
Mississippi lynching cost us 30 or 40 votes. Things are pretty strained up here just
now. I am trying to be useful in this situation, which is the most difficult I have every
worked in.

Up to this time, I have had the priviledge of talking to very plainly to

everybody. That is due in no small degree to the fact that I have not been talking about
anybody. In fact, I have not been talking much. I have found in my experience, where
I am really trying to get results, that I never hurt my chances by not talking too much.

With kindest personal regards, I am

Very sincerely yours,

HWS:ns
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<In Mississippi some African Americans were lynched and blowtorches applied to
their bodies before the vote on the bill.>

7. Letter from HWS to Hon. Cleo Thompson, April 24, 1944. DHS Box
106.2.6.

<Sumners supporters were upset that Sumners didn’t have a heated response to the
U.S. Supreme Court 1944 ruling against whites only primary in Texas. So in response
Sumners wrote a series of letters in which Sumners pointed out his long record of
upholding white supremacy and that his whole philosophy of the constitution is about
getting support from outside the South to defeat civil rights. Cleo Thompson was a
long term close political supporter of Sumners. Sumners is responding to an upset
Cleo Thompson. The bill to reduce representation of the South in the U.S. House is
the Tinkham bill.>

April 24, 1944

Hon. Cleo Thompson

Kirby Building
Dallas, Texas

My dear Cleo:

I am in receipt of your letter of the 19th, which I appreciate very much indeed. I
know that that letter is written because of your deep interest in my political welfare.

I agree with what you have in your mind, but I know that we are very much in
numerical minority. We in the South have got one-fourth of the vote of the House and
Senate, and we have to exercise the most deliberate and best strategy which we can
possibly command to prevent ourselves from being jockeyed into position of isolation.
It has been my responsibility almost ever since I have been in Congress to protect the
South in so far as the House is concerned, and to a definite degree in so far as the
Congress is concerned, against the policies and measures directed definitely against it.
We had the proposition to destroy the Jim Crow law of the South, another to reduce
our representation on the score that we did not permit negroes to vote, the anti-
lynching bill, the poll tax bill, and all the rest of them, which we have not been able to
defeat in the House but they have gone to the Senate pretty groggy. We have got the
most serious situation now that we have had since the days of reconstruction,
dangerous to the solidarity of the country as a whole and to the security of the races,
especially in the South, and more especially the colored people.

This Texas Primary decision is just one of the incidences hastening the crisis. But the
attention of the country must be directed to the whole program. I had a talk with Dan
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Moody Saturday about this situation. I am prepared to move when the timing seems
to be best. We are about at that period now, in my judgement. Dan seemed to agree
with me. Of course, there is no chance to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself, and
there is a good deal of delicacy in discussing the situation while this motion is still
pending. If I am able to be influential in this general situation my influence has got to
be exerted not from the standpoint of a partisan Southerner but from the standpoint
of the general public’s interest. Of course, coming from the South I do possess a
knowledge of the matter which people from other sections do not have, and I have a
legitimate right, as well as a duty which I believe is apparent, to give the country the
benefit of that knowledge.

….

8. Letter from HWS to Hon. C.F. O’Donnell, April 24, 1944. DHS Box
106.2.6.

<This letter repeats much what was in the letter to Cleo Thompson showing that
Sumners’ letter to Cleo Thompson wasn’t a fluke. However, the letter makes it very
clear that Sumners is concerned to protect the image he has built up as a great
constitutional expert to give credibility to his constitutional arguments against civil
rights. Also, Sumners makes it very clear here that he is an ethnonationalist. In many
ways Sumners is stating the Dallas approach to maintaining the racial order, never
justify it as a matter of race but always on the basis of general principles.>

April 24, 1944

Hon. C.F. O’Donnell

Southwestern Life Building
Dallas, Texas

My dear Charlie:

Your letter of the 20th has just been received. I will not undertake to express my
appreciation for your generosity, and for the fact you are a friend on the job. You know
we have all sorts of friends. There never was a time when I have needed friends of
your type more than at this time. In the first place, as you know, the things which aree
focusing into this office are incomparably greater than they have ever been, in fact are
beyond human capacity properly to attend to.

At this time I am being called again to responsibility growing out of the fat that
the South is again under attack. This Supreme Court decision is only one of many
things that have been occurring, not merely, according to the view of those
responsible, to take care of an equal interest and equal opportunity the colored
people; but in effect it has gone so far as to attempt to destroy the opportunity of the
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white people of the South to get off to themselves and do things which they want to
do. If white people want to work by themselves, the attempt is to destroy that
opportunity. If they want to determine among themselves how they shall proceed with
regard to their political matters, these outside people attempt to destroy that
opportunity. So, when you come to analyze it, it really means that the white people of
the South are to be deprived of the opportunity of segregating themselves if they want
to. Of course, in the long run, the colored people are going to suffer from this policy.

So far as the House is concerned, I had the responsibility when we had these
anti-lynching bills up. Twenty-odd years ago I had made the argument with regards to
the constitutionality and the policy behind the anti-lynching bill. It is considered here
that the argument I made then has never been answered, and has been the basis for all
the arguments that have been made since that time. I did a great deal of work on it. I
am responsible for defeating the bill to destroy the Jim Crow law of the South, and the
proposed legislation to reduce the representation of the South because of the alleged
fact that the negroes were not permitted to vote.

2=Hon. C.F. O’Donnell

I have not done these things as a professional Southerner, nor as a negro hater,
but in the interests of both the white and colored people of the South; and, as I see it,
clearly in the interest of the colored people, among whom I have many friends. This
recent decision of the Supreme Court is only one of the many things being done which
are influencing the development of the most serious inter-racial crisis that we have
had since the most difficult days of reconstruction.

The present situation presents difficulties because many of my friends are

angry and want me to do a lot of head-cracking. That might be every entertaining and
cheer-provoking. But we have got only one-fourth of the membership of the Congress.
We are, therefore, in the same situation as a small power, a small nation, which has to
have some allies. People in such situations have got to use strategy to keep their feet
on the ground and move as good judgment suggest, having in mind their objectives
and their own danger. As I have said, that is presenting to me a pretty difficult
situation just now. Some of my best friends are getting impatient because they think
that my failure to act immediately and in the spirit of their own attitude is doing to me
political hurt. While I feel that it is my duty to come back to Congress if I can, this
situation is too delicate and too dangerous to or section of the country for me to forget
that thing in attempting to do political service to myself.

I had a talk with Dan Moody Saturday, and he agrees fully with my strategy. My
best friends there wanted me to get in on this attempt to procure a rehearing. But as I
see it, that would put me before the country in the attitude of trying to play politics
with this matter. The country would know that I could contribute nothing by being
conspicuous in this connection, and I would be putting myself, as I see it, in the
attitude that of presuming that I could exercise some influence with the Court
independently of what was incorporated in the brief. This, of course, would
tremendously reduce the possibility of having to the country at large consider what I
may be able to say with reference to what is being done to bring on a serious crisis
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between the white and black people of this country at this time, when we are at war
and need all the solidarity and strength which we can command.

I am sorry to burden you with so long a letter, but I know of your interest, and I
would like to have this statement from me down there in the possession of such a
person as you are.

Sincerely your friend,

HWS:br