Newspaper Page Text
Page 8
Flagpole Magazine *
November 13, 1991
Ghost Fry by John Seawright
Will Hairston, UGA’s First Student Radical
Wiiliam Merritt Hairston was born in 1867
or '68 in Hart County, Georgia. By age thirty
he had been a journalist, a schoolteacher,
a political agitator, a revenue agent and a
soldier. He was probably the only student
ever expelled from the University of Geor
gia for political activity.
Will Hairston grew up near where West
Bowersviile (now Canon) sprang up along
the new railroad in 1879, the oldest of the
nine children of John A and Nancy Ann
Merritt Hairston His parents came from
moderately well off farming families who fell
on hard times after the Civil War. Will's
father was badly wounded in Confederate
service and was frequently sick for the rest
of his life; early on Will had to take up much
of his father’s work, a circumstance that
probably led to his avoidance of farming in
later life.
Will was a precocious child. At fourteen
he was writing the weekly West Bowersviile
news column for the Hartwell Sun. He
showed otf a big vocabulary, wide reading
and a taste for gossip and political contro
versy which didn’t always set well with his
readers. In the spring of 1882 he made
some remarks on the little railroad being
built from West Bowersviile to Carnesville
and ignited the wrath of its owner, William F.
Bowers, also publisherof the Franklin County
Register. Bowers, despite his political and
religious eccentricities, was a man of great
influence in the area He published some
personal attacks on Hairston and Hairston
replied in kind. The exchange escalated
until the Sun s editor refused to print one of
Will’s columns. The next issue of the Sun
had a new West Bowersviile correspon
dent.
In 1882 Will Hairston enrolled in the local
high school where his reputation grew as a
wit and scholar, and also as a ladies’ man.
Within a year his family moved down the
railroad to Elbert county and in another year
Hairston moved back up the tracks to
Royston to teach school. From time to time
he contributed oolite, thoughtful letters to
the Sun on political issues, never straying
from conservative Democratic orthodoxy.
Then in 1886 he got up the money to enroll
in the University of Georgia
In those days the University was still a
rich boys’ school. Hairston was markedly
poorer, older and more ‘‘country’’ than most,
if not all. of his classmates. He undoubtedly
endured a lot of chaff but managed to find
a congenial haven in the Demosthenian
Society He was a frequent and successful
debater and was elected janitor (a paying
position), doorkeeper, and was honored by
being elected one of the participants in the
big spring debate.
Two weeks after joining Demosthenian
Will was initiated into a less august brother
hood. Charlie Rice, an upperclassman and
self-appointed tormentor-in-chief of incom
ing freshmen, had cooked up a phony fra
ternity, Zeta Chi, whose induction of Hairston
was immortalized in the 1887 Pandora{see
accompanying illustration and poem).
Hairston was blindfolded, stripped,
scrubbed with a broom, blackfaced, bap
tized in green ink and tossed in a blanket to
an accompaniment of flung furniture till he
ran off in a panic. He may have been one of
the five initiates who avenged themselves
on Rice in a "fake" mugging on College
Avenue a few nights later.
Hairston joined a third organization in
the fall of 1886, one that would have a far
greater influence on his fortunes.
The Knights of Labor were a nationwide
labor union open to all workers regardless
of trade, race or sex. Their membership
grew explosively in the mid 1880s as wage
rollbacks and growing disgust with indus
trial capitalism fed a wave of strikes across
the country. The K of L came to Athens in
August 1885 and within a year had over 800
members, mostly workers from the cotton
miils along the Oconee (more about the
Athens K of L in next week’s column).
Whether from genuine class feeling or from
fascination with the Knights’ secret-society
trappings, Will Hairston (along with at least
one other member of the class of 1890)
signed up. He championed the cause of
labor in three of his Demosthenian debates
and though he had just missed the election
for state representative, he threw himself
into the Athens mayoral campaign of W.L.
Wood, a Knight of Labor running against
the businessmen’s candidate, Henry
Hodgson. Deciding to give politics his full
attention, Hairston petitioned Dr. Patrick
Mell. the Chancellor of the University, for a
month’s leave of absence, saying simply
that he was hard up for money and had an
opportunity to earn fifty dollars. The result is
reported in the Athens Weekly Banner
Watchman of April 12, 1887
"On [Hairston’s] return Dr. Mell made
inquiries as to what manner of work he had
done, and was astounded to learn that the
young man had sold his influence as a
Knight of Labor to one of the candidates for
$50, and had spent the time given him in
driving over the county in a buggy with a
negro and a jug of mean whisky, making
speeches every night to crowds of drunken
Africans. It is needless to add that this
aspiring young politician is no longer con
nected with the University."
It's impossible to tell what really hap
pened to Hairston. He left the University
sometime between March 26 and April 12,
1887. The faculty minutes (where discipli
nary decisions were recorded) for 1886-87
make no mention of him. The mayoral
campaign was over on December first — it
seems odd that it would have taken four
months for his activities to come to light. In
an editorial in the same issue that tells
Hairston’s story, the Banner- Watchman hints
at statewide dissatisfaction with lax disci
pline at UGA and congratulates the faculty
on their firm action. This refers primarily to
the expulsion of four students (including
Thomas Cobb of Athens, son of the author
of the Confederate constitution) for issuing
and accepting duelling challenges. Hairston
may well have been a sacrifice to public
opinion to show that rich boys were not
being singled out for special punishment In
any case Cobb and his friends were re
admitted after five weeks. Hairston neve'
returned.
Details of Hairston’s later life are harde r
to come by. In April 1894 he married Co r
nelia Daniel of Bowman, Georgia. Seve^
months later a son, Sumner, was born Fcr
some time Hairston was a deputy collector
of revenue — a revenuer, undoubtedly glac
that his successful argument for abolition o‘
the Internal Revenue Act had gone no fur
ther than the walls of Demosthenian Hail
Revenuing was good steady money, but
dangerous and humiliating work. !t was also
a political patronage job requiring discre
tion and diplomacy, never Will’sstrong suits
In January 1898 word came from D. C. that
he was canned.
The Hairstons seemed to have been
expecting the axe: Three months earlier
Cornelia, pregnant with their daughter
Jewel!, had been out politicking to be ap
pointed postmistress at Damelsville. The
Damelsvillians thought such plums fit only
for local folks and sent her packing. Will lost
his job in January *98. On April 6 he was
arrested in Madison county for a misde
meanor and jailed but was able to make his
bond. Five days later President McKinley
solved Will Hairston’s more pressing prob
lems by declaring war on Spain.
Hairston enlisted as a private in Com
pany E of the Third Georgia Volunteer
Regiment — "Ray’s Immunes." He shipped
out of Savannah for Cuba on January 15,
1899, missed most of the action, pulled
some garrison duty and w '£ promoted to
corporal. Back in Elberton five months later
he gave an interview expressing deep dis
gust with the lack of racial discrimination in
Cuba and discussing opportunities for
exploiting the natives.
Here we lose Will Hairston’s trial. He was
not in Georgia in 1900, though his wife and
children were. He might still have been in
the army — he might have lit out for Texas
His memorial marker — not a tombstone —■
at Holly Springs Baptist Church gives only
his name and military record. If I ever turn
up more information on him you’ll read it
here. He was, like so many Southerners, a
strong willed individualist with an equally
strong need to join up and fit in somewhere
He illustrates in little the tragedy of Southern
— and American — radicalism: the inability
to put class solidarity over racism and na
tionalism.
Next week: The Burghers Tremble:
The Knights of Labor in Athens.
1885-87.
CopyrigW 1991. John SeawfigW
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