dry,
and in large areas of the other Southern States the sale of intoxicants
was forbidden through local option. Southern members of Congress urged
the submission of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
forbidding manufacture or sale of intoxicants in the nation. Every
Southern State promptly ratified the Amendment when it was submitted by
Congress.

Unfortunately many negroes when deprived of alcohol began to use drugs,
such as cocaine, and the effect morally and physically was worse than that
of liquor. The "coke fiend" became a familiar sight in the police courts of
Southern cities, and the underground traffic in the drug is still a
serious problem. The new Federal law has helped to control the evil, but
both cocaine and alcohol are still sold to negroes, sometimes by pedlars of
their own race, sometimes by unscrupulous white men. The consumption of
both is less, however, than before the restrictive legislation. The South
has traveled far from its old opposition to sumptuary laws. Like State
Rights, this principle is only invoked when convenient. Starting largely as
a movement to keep whiskey from the negro and, to a somewhat less extent,
from the white laborer, prohibition has become popular. On the whole it
has worked well in the South though "moonshining" is undoubtedly
increasing. The enormous price eagerly paid for whiskey in the
"bone-dry" States has led to a revival of the illicit distillery, which
had been almost stamped out.

CHAPTER IV

THE FARMER AND THE LAND

The end of Reconstruction found the tenant system and the "crop lien"
firmly fastened upon the South. The plantation system had broken down
since the owner no longer had slaves to work his land, capital to pay
wages, or credit on which to borrow the necessary funds. Many of the
great plantations had already been broken up and sold, while others,
divided into tracts of convenient size, had been rented to white or
negro tenants. What had been one plantation became a dozen farms, a
score, or even more. Men who owned smaller tracts found it difficult to
hire or to keep labor, and many retained only the land which they or
their sons could work and rented the remainder of their farms. This
system is still characteristic of Southern agriculture.

Few of the landless whites and practically none of the negroes had
sufficient money reserve to maintain themselves for a year and hence no
capital to apply to the land on which they were tena