Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South

Book excerpt: 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.