Portrait of a Scientific Racist: Alfred Holt Stone of Mississippi

337 Pages·2008·1.42 MB·English

by  James G.

Portrait of a
Scientific Racist
Alfred Holt Stone of Mississippi
James G. Hollandsworth Jr.
Portrait of a Scientifi c Racist

Portrait of a
Scientifi c Racist
Alfred Holt Stone of Mississippi
James G. Hollandsworth Jr.
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BATON ROUGE
Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright © 2008 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
Designer: laura roubique gleason
Typefaces: whitman, text; rockwell extra bold, display
Typesetter: j. jarrett engineering, inc.
Printer and binder: thomson- shore, inc.
Frontispiece: Alfred Holt Stone, ca. 1935. Courtesy Mississippi Department of Archives
and History.
library of congress cataloging- in- publication data
Hollandsworth, James G.
Portrait of a scientifi c racist : Alfred Holt Stone of Mississippi / James G. Hollands-
worth, Jr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8071-3336-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Stone, Alfred Holt, 1870—1955.
2. Stone, Alfred Holt, 1870-1955—Political and social views. 3. Plantation owners—
Mississippi—Biography. 4. Cotton farmers—Mississippi—Biography. 5. Missis-
sippi. State Tax Commission—Offi cials and employees—Biography. 6. Racism—
Mississippi—History—20th century. 7. Eugenics—Mississippi—History—20th century.
8. Mississippi—Race relations—History—20th century. 9. Racism—United States—
Philosophy. 10. Eugenics—United States—History—20th century. I. Title.
F341.S78H65 2008
305.80092—dc22
[B]
2007051856
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library
Resources. >
For Anne Lipscomb Webster, who opened the door

Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
INTRODUCTION: The American Race Problem 1
1 20
AN ORDERLY BRAIN
2 26
ESSENTIALS OF GREATNESS
3 37
NO TWILIGHT ZONE
4 46
FOOD FOR THE HUMAN MIND
5 62
THE BUSINESS OF RAISING COTTON
6 76
CONVICTIONS OF SOUTHERN MEN
7 91
MY LIFE WORK
8 104
I AM NOT A NEGROPHOBIST
9 131
DESTRUCTIVE PROPENSITY
vii
CONTENTS
10 161
FRANK, WITHOUT BEING OFFENSIVE
11 185
SEVERE AND DISCRIMINATING CRITICISM
12 211
A SLAVE TO BUSINESS
13 233
IN PUBLIC DUTY
14 250
AND IN PRIVATE THINKING
Appendix A: Verifi cation of Stone’s Authorship of Editorials
in the Greenville Times 273
Appendix B: Verifi cation of Stone’s Annotations 276
Appendix C: Reconciling Stone’s Books with His Collections 279
Appendix D: Should the N in Negro Be Capitalized? 281
Appendix E: Stone’s Letter to LeRoy Percy 285
Bibliography 287
Index 309
Illustrations follow page 160
viii
Preface
I did not intend to write this book. It started out as a biographical sketch
to accompany a fi nder’s aid for a large collection of material at the Missis-
sippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) that I was working on.
The subject, Alfred Holt Stone, was well known in the state, but not much
was known about his personal life. There were two articles about Stone in
the Journal of Mississippi History, one written by John David Smith that dealt
with Stone’s work on the history of slavery, and another, a eulogy, written in
1955 on the occasion of Stone’s death. In addition, MDAH had the typescript
of Stone’s recollections of his childhood, which he wrote when he was in his
sixties, and there was also material at MDAH regarding Stone’s activities as
an executive of the Staple Cotton Cooperative Association and later as Mis-
sissippi’s tax commissioner. But two articles, some newspaper clippings, the
typescript of his recollections, and miscellaneous documents related to his
public service were the extent of what I had to work with.
Although this material provided the outlines of Stone’s life and some in-
formation about his childhood, it did not offer much insight in regard to
more important questions concerning his racial views, particularly his mo-
tivation for assembling such a large collection of material on black people.
Nor were there any obvious leads as to where more information about Stone
could be obtained. Stone and his wife, Mary, had only one child, a boy, who
died in infancy. Consequently, there were no direct descendants to carry
Alfred Holt Stone’s memory forward. In addition, I was unable to locate any
of Stone’s papers, which was surprising given that Stone, of all people, would
have appreciated the importance of his personal papers as a testament to
his many years of public service. Nevertheless, either they had disappeared,
been destroyed, thrown away, or were languishing out of mind in the attic of
an unidentifi ed relative.
ix