Chesapeake (129 page)

The Turlocks were savagely supportive of the proposed restrictions and campaigned up and down the river for its passage: ‘Niggers killed our cousin Matt. They’re slaves at heart and better be kept that way.’ Even the family members who had shipped with Big Jimbo aboard the
Jessie T
or served under him on the
Eden
were vehement in their pronouncement that no black had the intelligence to vote; their experiences to the contrary aboard a skipjack were ignored, and the men ranted, ‘They’re animals. They got no rights.’ Only Jake Turlock suffered
confusion on this matter; he knew that Big Jimbo was the most capable man ever to serve on the
Jessie T,
more reliable even than Tim Caveny, but whenever he was tempted to concede this, he recalled the description of blacks that he had memorized so well in school, and he could see the words inflamed in his copybook:

No black who had ever served with him had been lazy, but in his mind all blacks were. No blacks had been as superstitious as a skipjack captain who would allow no blue, no bricks, no women, no walnuts, no hold cover wrong side up. No blacks had been so vengeful as the German Otto Pflaum, and as for stupidity and irresponsibility, these words could never remotely be applied to Big Jimbo or the black watermen he enlisted, yet Jake believed that all blacks were flawed by those weaknesses, because in his childhood he had been so taught. One night after a hectic meeting at which he had spoken in defense of the amendment, he said to Caveny, ‘Come to think of it, Tim, I never heard a nigger sing aboard our skipjack, but it’s well known they love to sing.’

‘They’re a bad lot,’ Caveny replied. ‘Cain’t never tell what they’re up to.’

The Cavenys, now a growing clan along the river, had always been disturbed by the presence of blacks in their community. ‘We didn’t have no niggers in Ireland. Wouldn’t tolerate ’em if they tried to move in. They ain’t Catholic. They don’t really believe in God. Ain’t no reason in the world why they should vote like ordinary men.’ The entire Caveny brood intended to vote for the amendment and could imagine no reason for doing otherwise.

The other residents along the Choptank were almost universally opposed to black franchise, and this illustrated a singular change that was modifying Eastern Shore history: during the Civil War well over half the Choptank men who had served did so in the Union army, but now when their descendants looked back upon that war they claimed that well over ninety-five percent had fought with the Confederacy. The reasons behind this self-deception were simple: ‘No man could have pride in havin’ fought for the North, side by side with niggers. My pappy was strictly South.’ Patamoke families were proud if an ancestor had marched with Lee or ridden with Jeb Stuart, ashamed if he had served with Grant, and it became common for families to lie about past affiliations.

Because of this selective memory, the Eastern Shore converted itself into one of the staunchest southern areas, and people were apt to say, ‘Our ancestors had slaves and fought to keep ’em. Emancipation was the worst evil ever to hit this land.’ It was these belated southerners, egged on by plantation families whose ancestors had honestly sided with the South, who now united to keep blacks from their schools and churches;
they joined in mobs to discipline them when they became fractious; and gleefully they combined to adopt this amendment which would rescind the right to vote. Indeed, it seemed as if this might be the first step in a return to the good, rational days of the past, when blacks knew their place and when life on the Eastern Shore was placid and orderly—‘We end this votin’ nonsense for niggers, we can restore some peace and quiet in this community.’

The only people who opposed the new law were the Paxmores and a few dissidents like them, and even these would have been muted by the unanimity of the community had it not been for a formidable schoolteacher. Miss Emily Paxmore was one of those tall, gangly women of indefinite age who seemed destined from birth to be spinsters; she might have taught music, or served as clerk in some uncle’s store, or concentrated her efforts on whatever church she attended, but in her case she found a place in the schoolroom, where she taught with a persistence that amazed both the parents and their children.

She was a large woman who favored severe clothes, a hairdo drawn taut, and a frown which repelled parents on first acquaintance, then softened as she spoke about the educability of their children. When she first heard of the proposed legislation, she supposed that the reporter was teasing her because of her known sympathy with blacks, and she made a frivolous response: ‘To even consider such a law would be like turning the calendar back two hundred years.’

This unfortunate remark became a rallying cry for the advocates of the amendment, who declared, ‘That’s exactly what we want. The way things were two hundred years ago, before the niggers fouled them up.’

When Miss Paxmore realized that the sponsors of the bill were serious, she directed her formidable energy to resisting them. She rose in meeting to enlist the support of her fellow Quakers, but found a surprising number sympathetic to the bill, supporting the theory that Negroes were not capable of understanding issues.

She convened public meetings, but made the serious mistake of inviting northern ministers and politicians to address them, for this tactic lost more votes than it gained—‘We don’t need northerners comin’ down here to instruct us on how to vote.’

She moved about the town, relentlessly buttonholing anyone who would listen, but she accomplished nothing. In despair she traveled across the bay to Baltimore for consultation with opponents of the bill, and there found only gloom. ‘The situation is this, Miss Emily. All the Eastern Shore favors the legislation. All the southern counties, loyal to the Confederacy, will vote for it. The far western areas, where a sense of freedom has always maintained, will support the Negro’s right to vote, and so will much of Baltimore. But if you add our votes and theirs, they’ve got to win.’

Maryland became a test case for black rights; orators from many
southern states came north to excite voters against the dangers of black franchise, and sabers rattled as ancient battles were recalled. Each week it became increasingly apparent that the amendment was going to be adopted and that in Maryland, at least, blacks would revert to the conditions they had occupied during their centuries of slavery.

Emily Paxmore returned to Patamoke a defeated woman, and men at the store chuckled as she picked her grim way back to her home near the school. And then, four weeks before the plebiscite was to take place, she had an idea, and without conferring with anyone, she boarded the
Queen of Sheba
and sped to Baltimore. Breathlessly she told the men and women running the campaign against the amendment, ‘It’s quite simple. We can defeat this fraud by a tactic that will prove irresistible.’

‘What could possibly turn the tide?’

‘This. From today on we never mention the word Negro. Instead we hammer at the fact that this amendment will deprive Germans, Italians, Jews and even Irishmen of their right to vote. We’ll make them fight our battle for us.’

‘But the amendment doesn’t say that,’ a gentleman versed in law objected.

Miss Paxmore tensed. ‘Few Germans or Italians or Russian Jews were eligible to vote on January 1, 1869. Think of that!’

‘But we all know that the law is not to be applied against them.’

‘I don’t know it,’ she said primly. ‘And I’m going to shout from every housetop that this is a plot to disfranchise immigrants.’

‘Wouldn’t that be dishonest?’

Miss Paxmore folded her hands, considered the accusation, and replied, ‘If I am telling a lie, the other side will be able to refute it … six weeks after the election.’

She was on the street twenty hours a day, a tall, furious woman dressed in gray, asking her impudent question in the German district and the Italian: ‘Does thee think it proper for good people who pay their taxes to be denied the vote?’ She wrote advertisements that appeared in the papers, challenged legislators of German and Italian extraction to open their eyes to the danger threatening their families, and spent her evenings in Baltimore’s Third Ward, haranguing Russian Jews: ‘They are plotting to rob thee of thy rights. Thee must fight this law.’

Advocates of the amendment were appalled by the fire-storm this gangling schoolteacher was igniting, and they dispatched John Prentiss Pope to assure all immigrants that his amendment would be applied judiciously. Party hacks circulated through the wards, whispering that ‘our amendment won’t never be used against your people. It’s meant only for
them.
’ And they would wink.

But Emily Paxmore had an answer for that. ‘They come like the snake in paradise and whisper, “We promise we won’t use the new law against
thee.” But I can assure thee that they have plans right now to disfranchise every Jew, every German and every Italian. Once this amendment passes, thy vote is lost forever.’

This accusation was almost criminal; obviously no such plans existed, nor had they even been suggested when the measure was first proposed. ‘Oh, we might want to use it some day against those damned Jews in the Third Ward. Cut them down to size. But never against the Germans.’ Supporters became frantic when Miss Paxmore circulated charges that the proposed new law would be applied immediately to eliminate the Irish vote.

‘This damned woman is destroyin’ us with her lies!’ one Democratic leader thundered, and he assembled a group of six to confront her in the small hotel from which she worked. When she met them in the lounge, six pillars of ward politics, she found them geared for battle. ‘If you repeat those lies against us, we’ll take you to court. Throw you in jail.’

‘What lies?’ she asked simply, her hands folded in her lap.

‘That the Germans will be disfranchised.’

‘Won’t they be? The law is most explicit as thee has written it.’

‘But it’s not intended for Germans.’

‘Who is it intended for?’

‘Them.’

‘Is thee afraid to speak their name? Does thee mean the Jews?’

‘Now damnit, Miss Paxmore, there’s not a word in our amendment that works against the Jews.’

‘My dear friends, every word could be applied to Jews who immigrated here from Poland, or the Baltic, or Rumania.’

‘But we’re not going to use it against them. We promise you …’

Coldly she recited the terms of the proposed law; it could easily be applied to Jews and Catholics without good education and especially to Hungarians and Lithuanians and most particularly to Poles and Italians. Concluding her citation, she said, ‘It’s a cruel law, gentlemen, and thee should be ashamed of thyselves.’

They were not ashamed. ‘Miss Paxmore, you know damned well how this amendment will be used. If a nigger tries to vote, we give him the constitution, and I’m the judge and I say, “You didn’t pass.” If a German reads it, I say, “You pass.”’

‘For such duplicity thee should be doubly ashamed. How can the black man ever—’

‘Goddamnit!’ a burly political leader exploded. ‘We’re gonna throw you in jail for libel and perjury and defamation of character.’

Emily Paxmore was not intimidated. Looking at each of the men, she asked, ‘What character?’

Another leader waved his copy of the amendment and said almost plaintively, ‘It’s unfair, Miss Paxmore, for you to lie about our intentions.
You know in your heart we would never use this bill against good people … only niggers.’

Emily Paxmore grabbed the paper from his hand and placed it over her bosom. ‘This amendment, if it passes, will one day be applied against persons like me. But I see from thy expressions that it’s going to be defeated, and for that I thank God, because it’s a criminal effort.’

She was right. When the ballots were counted, Choptank voters had supported the amendment overwhelmingly, as had the rest of the Eastern Shore. Those southern areas on the mainland where slaves had been common also voted to deprive the blacks of their rights, but in the remainder of the state the plebiscite was determined on the principle that Miss Paxmore had enunciated: ‘Do you want to disfranchise immigrants?’ Blacks were never mentioned, and from the western counties where Germans had settled came a heavy vote against the amendment; in polyglot Baltimore it was overwhelmed. The proposal lost. Blacks could continue to vote.

When Emily Paxmore came home, she never spoke of her frenetic campaign. She returned to her teaching, producing young scholars whose lives would stabilize the Eastern Shore, but one afternoon when her brother Gerrit visited her, she responded openly to his interrogations. ‘I did lie, Gerrit, and I’m sorely troubled by it. They had no plan to disfranchise Germans or Jews. And I did make the accusation too late for them to combat it.’

‘Why did thee do it?’

‘Because each soul on this earth faces one Armageddon. When all the forces are arranged pro and con. Now comes the one great battle, and if thee runs away or fails to fight with vigor, they life is forever diminished.’

‘Thee sounds mighty military, for a Quaker.’

‘Armageddon is even more compelling when it’s a battle of the spirit. This law was wrong, Gerrit, and I stumbled upon the only way to destroy it. I’m ashamed of the tactics I used, but if the same situation were to occur again …’ Her voice drifted away. She took out her handkerchief and pressed it to her nose. Blinking her eyes several times, she said brightly, ‘But it won’t occur again. Armageddon comes once, and we’d better not back off.’

In August 1906, when the two watermen were in their grizzled sixties, Caveny came running to the store with exciting news: ‘Jake, I think we got us a contract to haul watermelons from Greef Twombly’s place to Baltimore.’ This was important, for oystermen spent their summer months scrounging for commissions that would keep their skipjacks busy; the shallow-drafted boats carried too little free-board
to qualify them for entering the ocean, or they might have run lumber from the West Indies, as many schooners did. Also, the boom was so extended that in a good gale, when the starboard was underwater, the tip of the boom tended to cut into the waves, too, and that was disastrous.