Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-04-18
Mistellaneous &eadin9.
"CANARY" MILLER.
A "Reminiscences Of the Dark Days in
South Carolina.

South Carolina.
Sometime a single name or a small
incident will open floodgates of recol-
lections for those who have seen and
felt things and bring to very vivid life
old times and long arrays Of dead
men. We read in the South Caroline
newspapers that r. f. Miller has beer
removed summarily by the new gov
ernor from his long held position as
president Of the colOred university al
Orangeburg.
This is Canary" Miller" quite ar
old man now and long ago reconciled to
white rule and become a good and USE
full citizen. He was different thirty
four years ago when he sat in the
South Carolina legislature as a repre-
sentative from Beaufort-a short
square built man, seven -eighths white
wearing a heavy light gray sack suit
with the habit OF running his hands
into the pockets Of the coat and fairly
clear indication of a loaded revolver in
each pocket. Other nasty habits had
Canary" He sat as a member Of the
last attempt at a Republican legisla-
ture in a southern state in the last
year of the reconstruction era. He sat
with The Ring tailed Roarer of the
Cambahee," black negro whose Gullah
dialect from the coast Of Africa whose
immediate ancestry was so strong
that a white man from the up country
barely could understand him when he
Duke of Marlboro" an unctuous yell
low scoundrel representing the very
garden spot of the state, who used to
rise up and thunder from broad chest
and a wide throat when the house in
chorus rendered Hold the Fort for
Hayes and Wheeler" How it did rever-
berate, rendered to the air of Hold the
fort for l am coming" when the South
Carolina legislature refreshed itself
with song.
Canary" was not of the group col
lectively known as The Forty
Thieves" but he was about as full OF
fight and venom as a rattlesnake. One
hundred and twenty-five was the legal
membership of the house of represen-
tatives, in the year Of the mighty up
rising of the white people under lead
ership of Wade Hampton, the out
bursting and explosion of a fighting
and desperate civilization against a
$4,000 negro majority, the law and
Ulysses s. Grant in the presidents
seat The Democrats had elected six
ty-four-on the face of the returns. BY
means they kept two or three negro
Republican representatives at their
homes; but when their names were
called they answered. Dummies
ringers" had been put in to answer
for them and no Democrat dared avow
knowledge that the realities were not
there. Who could identify one low
land corn field negro from another
Then the Democrats, again by means
won over two or three. Tom Hamilton
was among them. He must have been
a descendant of a Zulu chieftain be-
cause later when his brethren clamor-
ed against him he rose, tall and
straight his skin smooth and sleek as
silk, and remarked that sometimes he
went out i'm his field and killed a rice
bird with a revolver for his sport
whereupon his brethren whimpered in
to silence because they knew 1t was so
Men. white or black, who could drive
pistol bullet through a rice bird al
eighteen steps were valuable at that
moment. and to be respected. But
when the Democrats gained over re-
cruIts the Republicans-"Radic ev-
erybody called them then-simply went
through the formality of declaring
seats from some Democratic counties
vacant and filled them with anybody
who might be handy wearing any
names that might fit, and so retained
their legal majority, to be certified tc
Washington.
So it befell that on a December day
the siXty-five Democrats and theil
colored allies, sitting in Carolina Hal
at Columbia, decided to go and occupy
the hall of the house of representatives
at the state house. They went, troop.
ing close behind Lawrence Orr Of An.
derson county, six feet and four inches
high and two hundred and sixty
pounds in bulk, who threw his weight
against closed doors and door-keepel
and hurst one and Overthrew the 9th.
er.
Sxty-fve and sXty-five and will
their quotas of sergeants-a at arms
clerks and attendants the two houses
of representatives sat in the hall three
Gen. Wallace, S. c. A., of Union coun-
ty. the Democratic speaker, and f. w
NJ. Mackey of Charleston, the radica
speaker. sat side by side, each presid'
the other. United States soldier:
guarded the doors. Their orders were
not To eXpel the Democrats, but If
they went out not to allow them to re.
turn. The sessions continued through
all those hours of daylight and dark
ness. every man armed and ready anC
with his nerves strung for the desper.
ate fight all believed to he inevitable
"a fight of men shut in and forced tC
fight until one side or the other was
eXterminated or somebody surrender
ed. Under each folded overcoat wa:
Winchester rifle, in some pocket o
every mans clothes loaded revolver
-Four reporters sat at a table at the
head of the center aisle They knew
that behind Speaker Mackey to hi:
right two white men, chosen and ap.
proved killers, were stationed. instruct.
ed To shoot him dead at the first out.
break. Mackey knew il too, but HI
was clear game-that Mackey, radica
as he was; and he never moved Ol
flinched or in any way departed from
the strict formalities of his assumed
office and now and then his laughing
jackass laugh pealed through the house
as something funny occurred. But thu
reporters knew also that the moment
trpuL1n hopan q ctprp, or h,,Ilatc y,-o,,lf