Cutting across the Bourbon Era, the Populist Revolt, and the Progressive Movement, Hoke Smith’s career gave expression to the Southern politics of his generation. In Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South, Dewey Grantham examines in detail the central role of this leader as a key to the better understanding of the political mind of the New South. A vital force in Georgia politics for almost forty years, Hoke Smith was a powerful politician, a brilliant lawyer, a successful newspaper publisher, and a leading educational reformer. He was a member of President Cleveland’s second cabinet, was twice governor of Georgia, and served for ten years in the United States Senate. His career touched virtually all of the important developments in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the cross-currents of national and sectional events emerges Hoke Smith the individual. For the first time, in this full-length biography, Smith is seen in the perspective of the times in which he so emphatically participated. In its careful examination of his acts and motivations, the book captures at once the essence of a man and a political type, as well as of an important period.

Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Hoke Smith, at Jefferson, Ga;, Tuesday, August 6, 1895 In a short time it was found that 16 to 1 was not a correct ratio between the value of silver and gold, but that 16 grains of silver were worth more than 1 grain of gold. The Gresham law, the principle for which I am contending, at once came into play and Silver went out of circulation. We went to the gold standard, and silver, if coined at all, was coined for exportation, the object being simply te designate by the stamp of the Government the fact that a piece of silver bullion marked a dollar had 371} grains of silver in it. A silver dollar could be melted down and sold, when melted, for about three cents more than its value as coined money. This fact caused great scarcity in small change, because even the half dollars and the quarters were worth more for bar silver than for money at their coined value. In 1853 it became, therefore, necessary to lessen the amount of silver put in to halves and quarters so that they would not be melted into bar silver. This was done, and all Silver of denominations less than a dollar after 1853 were made subsidiary Silver. That is to say, they were good for the payment of debts only to a limited amount, namely, five dollars. NO man could compel another to accept eleven silver half dollars in payment of five dollars and a half Of debts or in payment of any sum above five dollars. In 1876 subsidiary silver was made legal tender to the amount of $10. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.