The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-06-01
RECONSTRUCTION DAYS
EDITOR WILLIAMS TALKS INTERESTINGLY
OF TOM MILLER
AND DAYS OF DUAL ASSEMBLY
A Time When Every Man Had a
Weapon for Defense and Offense
Stirring Days i'm the Capitol.

Sometimes a single name or Il
small incident of those who have
seen and felt things and long ar
rays or dead. We read in the
South Carolina newspapers that r.
L. Miller has been removed sum-
marily by the new Governor from
this long held position as president
OF the colored university at Orange
burg.
This is Canary Miller" quite an
old man now and long ago recon-
ciled to white rule and become a
good and useful citizen. He was
different thirty-four years ago
when he sat in the South Carolina
Legislature as representative
from Beaufort short square built
man, seven-eighths white, wearing
heavy, light gray sack suit, with
his habit Of running his hands into
the pockets of his coat--a fairly
clear indication of a loaded revolv-
er in each pocket. Other nasty hab-
its had Canary He sat as Il
member of the last attempt at
Republican Legislature in South
ern State in the last year of Recon-
struction era. He sat with The
Ring-Tailored Roarer of the Com
) bahee," black negro whose gullah
dialect from the coast OF Africa,
whose immediate ancestry was so
strong that white man from the
up-codntry barely could understand
him when he addressed the House:
also with the Duke of Marlboro, -
an unctuous yellow scoundrel, rep
resenting the very garden spot of
the State, who used to rise up and
thunder from a broad chest and a
wide throat when the House in cho-
rus rendered: Hold the Fort for
Hayes and Wheeler" How it did
reverberate, rendered to the air of
Hold the Fort, for | am Coming, -
when the South Carolina Legisla-
ture refreshed itself with song
In the Legislature.
Canary was not of the group
collectively known as "The Forty
Thieves" but he was about as full
3 of fight and venom as a rattlesnake.
One hundred and twenty-five was
the legal membership of the House
Of Representatives in the year of
the mighty uprising of the white
people under leadership Of Wade
Hampton the outbursting and ex-
ploding of a fighting and desper-
ate civilization against a 0,000 ne
gro majority, the law and Ulysses
5. Grant in the Presidents seat.
The Democrats had elected sixty
four-on the face of the returns.
BY means that kept two or three
Republican Representatives at their
homes; but when their names were
called they answered Dummies,
ringers" had been put in to ans
wer for them and no Democrat dar-
ed to knowledge that the realities
were not there. Who could identi-
fy one lowland cornfield negro from
another. Then, the Democrats
again, by means, won over two or
three; Tom Hamilton was among
them. He must have been a de-
scendant of Zulu chieftain, be-
cause later, when his brethren
clamored against him, he rose, tall
and straight, his skin smooth and
sleek as silk, and remarked that
sometimes Ne went out in his field
and killed ar ice bird with revolv-
or for his sport; whereupon his
brethren whimpered into silence be-
cause they knew 1t was so. Men,
white or black, who could drive a
pistol ball through a rice bird at
eighteen steps was valuable at the
moment and to be respected. But
when the Democrats gained over re-
cruits the Republicans Radicals
everybody called them-simply went
through the formality of declaring
ties vacant and filled them with
anybody who might be handy, wear
ing any names that might fit, and
SO retained their legal majority. to
be certified to Washington.
So it befell that on a December
day the sixty-five Democrats and
their colored allies, sitting in Co
iumDla hall at Columbia, decided to
so and occupy the hall of the House
Of Representatives at the State.
House. They went trooping close
behind Lawrence Orr, of Anderson
county, six feet and four inches
high and two hundred and sixty
pounds in bulk, who threw his
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